Justify The Means
by LithiumDoll
Summary: A race against time for Mutant X to save ... Genomex? NOW FINISHED
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody elses. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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_"Hey! You!"_

Brennan didn't turn around, he knew better than that. Never look back. Never, ever, turn around. You keep your attention where you're headed and if you have to make a run for it, you know exactly what's in your way. Perfect sense. Rule one, if he had rules, or the time to think about them. Never look back. Never, ever, turn around. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jesse and Emma look back, and the unpleasant sensation of inevitability swept over him. Any moment now someone would open fire on them, or someone would trip. There'd probably be a baby carriage or a sheet of glass being carried across their path involved, maybe even a car chase. No good ever came from looking back when someone yelled and you were carrying the entire contents of their company's security computer on a disk in your pocket. Damn disk. 

"You dropped this ma'am" 

Emma smiled at the slightly flustered guard who had chased them towards the doors. His hands were sweating from the exertion and his face reddened the longer she looked at him. Young, he couldn't have been on the job long, and he didn't even have the confidence to meet her eyes. It was kind of sweet in a way, she resisted the temptation to open her mind to his emotions and see whether he was as dirty as everyone else employed by Gen-Core seemed to be. She didn't want the disappointment. 

Instead she gave him a bright smile, ignoring the strangely tense signals she was receiving from Brennan and Jesse's simply impatient ones, taking the scarf that was now being held towards her. 

"Thank you .. " She read his name button ... "Ellis. That was very kind of you." 

Ellis' blush deepened and he mumbled something as he backed away towards his security station. Emma allowed her smile to become a grin as they left the building and walked briskly towards the position of their cloaked transport, making a mental note to ask Brennan what had been making him so jumpy lately when they got back. It was a jarring chord of _wrong_ in him that was beginning to wear on her psychic nerves, so what on earth it must be doing to his she could begin to guess. 

Jesse barely caught the disk that was thrown to him like it was burning, he frowned as he tucked it safely into his jacket pocket, beginning to form a question that died pre-vocal as Brennan turned on his heel and took off into the city without a word. 

Instead he was silent as he took his place in the cockpit of the plane, waiting until they were air born to look at Emma. He couldn't quite think of how to broach the subject of his worry over Brennan's behaviour. Maybe he was just over reacting, no one else had said anything, and it wasn't like Emma wouldn't be able to tell if there was something really wrong. 

"So.... You think Adam will give us a gold star?" 

She flashed him a smile then returned her attention to monitoring the clear skies. 

"He might, but I think I'd settle for an evening off. I have definite plans, and they all involve dancing. My very stylish and way too expensive new shoes will not be denied." 

Jesse just chuckled, it wasn't often Emma was so vocal about wanting time off, a sure sign that they were due some. Maybe Adam would take pity on them and give them some official R&R. Maybe that was just what all they needed. 

  
Jude Riley did not consider herself a bad person; although her moral compass wasn't really something she devoted a great deal of her time monitoring. Not when there were so many other important things to occupy her schedule morning, noon and night. But, if asked, she would have admitted in the blunt manner she preferred that the ends, in her opinion, did justify the means. 

She watched on monitor as a security guard gave the woman her dropped scarf. Glancing at the open file on her desk was no more than a habit; she knew their contents by heart now. Emma deLauro, Psionic of the Telempath strain, surprisingly far developed despite the lateness of exhibiting conscious control over her mutancy. 21 years of age, known member of Mutant X. 

Beside Ms deLauro was a young man that the file identified as Jesse Kilmartin, Molecular with the ability to increase or decrease his mass, 24 years of age, known member of Mutant X. Nearly off camera and appearing oddly distorted, not quite in focus in any of the frames, was the still recognisable Brennan Mulwray, Elemental with the DC charge capable at last estimate of powering a small city. 28 years of age and, of course, known member of Mutant X. But that didn't explain why it appeared to be creating a static interference around him when the stolen picture in the file was perfectly uneffected. Interesting. 

She made a note to include that in her report to Eckhart, smiling slightly at the good news she was able to give him. They had taken the files that she had worked so hard to make known to them as subtly as possible, and they had taken the scarf contaminated with nearly pure X-287. He would be pleased. And if Eckhart was pleased, her company would not suffer the fate of so many of Genomex' other front companies and be dissolved. 

More importantly, she would not be dissolved with it. 

Now all they could do was hope Adam was the genius everyone she knew so grudgingly admitted him to be. Of course, if he wasn't, at least Genomex would have the pleasure of knowing his people would die long before any of their own. The dose of, thus far, incurable X-287 would ensure that unless he could do what Genomex had found themselves unable to do. Cure it. 

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**Notes**  
This is a short first chapter to see if it's worth continuing or not, let me know if it is :) 


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody elses. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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Shalimar listened absently to the muted conversation taking place in the Com room between Adam and Jesse's voice, pleased to know the Double Helix and it's crew would be back soon. The details she would learn at the debrief, there was no point trying to second guess what had happened, it was enough to know they were coming home safe and sound. 

She had been sitting cross-legged beside the pool, eyes closed and thoughts as still as the water. If her hearing hadn't been as enhanced as it was, she wouldn't have been disturbed in her meditation at all. But that was the joy of being a child of Genomex, and a smile had to creep onto her lips at that ironic thought. With that, the calm of the last half hour was gone. It was so hard to maintain even at the best of times, and lately the best times had been few and far between. The other's had taken their peace where they could find it, be that working out, clubbing or reading. She liked the water, found comfort in it somehow. It had soothed her when Richard had … gone and she had claimed it as hers from then. The others had been kind, or sensible, enough to give her that space when she needed it. 

Adam's footsteps were soft as they came towards her, a touch of hesitance in them at disturbing that could only have been heard, he never let indecision show visibly, not even to the ones that cared for him. Someday perhaps he would let them see the man, but it wouldn't be today. She smiled and opened her eyes, trying clear the last fogged traces of the maudlin train of thought from her mind. He returned her smile as he dropped to an easy crouch beside her. 

"They'll be back in a few minutes, everything went just fine." 

"But ...?" 

He arched an eyebrow and followed her up as her smile became a grin and she stood, stretching in one lithe move that gave no doubt at all to her Feral genes. 

"Does there have the be a 'but'?" 

"When you have that tone in your voice ... yes. And after that there has to be a moment of guilty soul searching while you try and see how to blame yourself for whatever's happened." 

The warmth in her gentle teasing took away any sting that might have accompanied her words, Adam gave a quiet but genuine laugh and ducked his head in a wry nod that admitted on his behalf he had been doing exactly that. 

"I'm just ... wary. Since when has an incursion into a Genomex building gone that smoothly before? And Brennan disappeared again." His lips thinned, half in disapproval, half with the customary worry. "Emma keeps trying to talk to him, but he always finds an excuse to be somewhere she isn't when she's looking for him. He hasn't been near the lab in a month to let me take readings. I wish we could afford to let him have the time to deal with whatever his problem is, but something is coming. We don't have that luxury." 

Shalimar nodded, the smile fading a touch as she watched him begin to pace, growing more agitated as he talked. She could feel the wild within rising and reacting to that irritation, wanting to pace and worry along with the pack, to chase away the threat from their territory like the big cat that lived so very shallowly under her skin. 

Part of the reason for the growing tension had been Adam's conviction a storm was coming for them, a hunch he had first had a month before and increasingly the main topic of conversation until everyone by unspoken accord had stopped mentioning it entirely since there was absolutely nothing they could do except what they always did. But steadily conversations had become brittle and forced, they were snapping at each other and of course Adam was blaming himself for telling them about his fears in the first place. If the storm didn't break soon, one way or the other, she suspected it wouldn't be just Brennan avoiding coming back to Sanctuary. 

She chose her words carefully, speaking slowly but with a measure of conviction. "Maybe the Genomex run went well because we're getting more practised. And Brennan is just blowing off steam. He'll be here when he has to be, everything will work out once we know what we're fighting." Her grin was quick and confident, consciously mirroring the male members of the team's smirks when they were winning at anything. "We'll beat whatever it is and back in time for dinner. As long as Jesse didn't cook it." 

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my cooking! Just because I think there's more to fixing up a steak than waving it at a grill..." 

Jesse and Emma crossed over towards them, both smiling easily and apparently relaxed. That seemed to calm Adam, in turn calming her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for now, she grinned trying to keep the rare lightness in the conversation. 

"You cremated it Jesse! It wasn't a steak, it was a cinder block" 

Emma nodded, collaborating with a barely straight face. "It's true, we did a taste test on Brennan. He thought we were trying to poison him and didn't speak to us for a couple of days." 

A polite, amused, cough cut in before Jesse's faux offended retaliation could take place, Adam holding his hand out expectantly. "The disk please? If I can start decrypting it now we should know what it was they tripled their network security to hide by morning ... which gives you all the evening off." He paused, as if considering something quite serious a moment before nodding solemnly at his decision. "Might I suggest eating out? I have a dark suspicion it's Jesse's turn to cook." 

  
He had been starring at his drink so long he was beginning to wonder when he'd begin to see it staring back. Wasn't that something Nietzsche had said? Except three fingers of JD probably didn't qualify as an abyss. Maybe it would if he drank some more. After all, the same guy had said what wouldn't kill you would make you stronger. Sounded good. 

Brennan pushed the glass away, the contents untouched, and stood trying to keep his skin from brushing anything conductive. Already the bar was getting a crowd as the offices let out and the suits came in to drown their sorrows and find a date for the lonely weekend. Soon enough the place was going to start getting too packed to avoid touching people and that would get ... shocking. 

He avoided looking at anyone as he made his way to the door knowing he was being stared at. A 6'3'' man practically hugging the wall, taking the long way out and so wrapped up in a great coat and gloves that barely any skin showed had to look strange by anyone's standards. Eventually he made it onto the sidewalk, the chill in the air even colder against the sweat on his skin. 

There was always sweat now, he was surprised no one on the team had noticed. Too busy waiting for the other boot to drop he guessed, which was fine by him. It had started pretty small, and Elementals were well known for having at best a tenuous control on some facet of their power or other. For some it was flow control, for him it had been building a steady charge. So it hadn't really been much of a surprise at an errant spark here, an action too quick as synapses fired there. And then one day he'd realised his body was slowly super-charging itself out of control. 

Now it was all he could do to move at anything close a normal speed when his nerves hummed with the electrical impulses that wanted him to do a lightning impression. He hadn't been able to wash for a week, the water not just short circuiting him any more, but actively reversing his charge back. It had been an unpleasant experience, and it was only getting worse. A shower suddenly seemed like the most divine concept on earth, and there was no way he was even going to consider it. 

It was possible he hadn't paid as much attention to rain reports in his entire life as much as he had in the last month. 

The most ironic thing of all was that he couldn't throw the electricity anymore and tap himself out that way. Oh no, that'd be too easy. He'd always had to charge up for anything more serious than a static shock before, but now he had to be careful about even looking at things too hard unless they began to take on a suspiciously crackling blue outline. Things ... and people. Work up a charge now and it'd probably take out the block. 

He'd considered telling Adam, but then 'The Great Coming Of Something' had appeared and he just couldn't bring himself to make things any worse. But something had to be done now; he just had to figure out what. 

_Hey! Brennan!_

Briefly he considered using his 'don't look back, don't turn around' rule, but Jesse probably wouldn't buy that he hadn't heard him. Especially not when it sound like he was about five feet behind and gaining; so Brennan smiled as he looked back and replied with as much good grace as he could muster. 

"Hey Jesse, wassup man?" 

Jesse drew even and glanced up, hands stuck in pockets and ambling along at the easy pace the other man had set. 

"Well, I wanted to let you know Adam's given us the evening off while the disk decrypts…" 

He could practically hear Jesse's next words. They were definitely ringing 'want to talk?' alarm bells. It wasn't polite to cut up, but no one had ever accused him of being polite anyway. 

"Shal and Emma went to that club Emma was talking about, yeah?" 

"Oh ... yeah … Listen, Brennan …" 

"You should probably go with them, make sure Emma doesn't pick up anyone with fangs, or worse. I hear lawyers hang out there." 

Jesse gave up with a shake of his head, holding his hands up for a moment in surrender. He could hear some of his frustration in his tone and he hated it, but his team mate was starting to drive him crazy. It was like taking two steps back after he thought they'd maybe come to a kind of understanding after mostly working out the alpha male crap. Well, after Shalimar had pretty much shown that, if there was an alpha, it was her. 

"You know what? You don't want to talk about it, fine. But whatever is going on with you, get it dealt with." He waited a moment, looking for any sign of imminent share time on Brennan's poker faced expression and naturally finding none. "You said you had my back, we're meant to have yours too." 

Nothing but a shrug and some words muffled behind the coat buttoned up so high it obscured most of the face too. Now he thought about it, he hadn't seen Brennan with anything less on for ... weeks. Something was definitely wrong, but the middle of the sidewalk probably wasn't the place to try and coerce someone capable of flash frying you back to a secret hide out to be prodded in a lab. So Jesse just mustered a slightly more convincing copy of the dull smile he had been greeted with and spun on his heel to rejoin Emma and Shalimar, lurking out of sight around the corner. 

"Gotta meet at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow, see ya then" 

Brennan watched him walk away for a moment before he felt a drop of rwater hit his coat. Perfect. As he dove into an alcove to wait the rain out, he reflected that all he needed now to round off the night was for Eckhart to lend him an umbrella. 

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**Notes**  
Hey Shalimar fans, hope this chapter fed the craving 

"He who fights with monsters might take care, lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."   
-Nietzsche (Who said fan fic wasn't educational? ::grins::) 


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody elses. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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His first clue, when he'd finally gotten back after waiting out the rain shower around three a.m., was the note tacked on his door telling him the de-briefing would take place in the lab in the morning. Should have started packing then, but he was so damn tired he'd just fallen into bed. The second clue came in the morning when Jesse didn't pound on his door to get him up, instead leaving him to wake up with fifteen minutes to spare. Not enough time to get lucid, let alone hotwire the Double Helix and head down to Mexico. 

Busted. So very busted. 

As he walked into the lab, wrapped in his great coat and hands gloved with the only skin visible around his eyes, Brennan went for nonchalant towards the four pairs of eyes staring at him with identical intervention gleams. He spoke, voice muffled behind the thick scarf. 

"What? Got something on my face?" 

"Brennan ... " 

The half tolerant, half amused tone in Emma's voice didn't have entirely the effect she had been hoping for. Rather than cajoling him closer, Brennan lingered in the doorway as if he were ready to turn and run at a moment's notice. Half his wardrobe appeared to be under the coat, his normally lean frame was bearing more of a resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy than anything else, and bright blue eyes were widening with a kind of panic. 

Since when did their resident back-up generator, as Jesse called him, have blue eyes. 

She took a step forward; he took an automatic step back into the corridor. This was getting them nowhere. 

Adam's voice came calmly from beside her, but she couldn't follow the meaning of his words as she tried to concentrate on synching with her team mate's psyche, trying to find any way to calm him, understand, anything. It has been easy once; she had latched onto him half trained, running in terror and with no idea of who he was. She'd done it again when Genomex had taken him, and last when he had been dying as his organs slowly dissolved. It should have been the work of a moment to get the rapport she was named for, but instead it was like sliding off opaque glass that was doing a roller coaster impression. 

There were vague shapes in her minds eye, hazy and blurring further even as she tried to grip them in the dizzy spin. Somehow he was pushing her back, or just evading her, but it clearly wasn't deliberate. It wasn't even something he should have had the ability to do, but his mind, his emotions, were quicksilver to her. 

Something dark was uncoiling towards her, darkening the edges of her vision and catching her breath in her throat. It wasn't Brennan, not anymore. And in a body capable of cooking a chicken from frozen in four seconds, there was no control at all. None. 

"... and you have to let us help you. Whatever it is, we can deal with it." 

Jesse crossed his arms and leaned back against the panel of flashing lights, reasonably sure he wouldn't be called upon to drag anyone kicking and biting in. It seemed to be going well enough, Brennan was edging into the room, movements a little jerky, but at least not just brushing them off again. 

Shalimar nodded encouragingly at the end of Adam's sincere appeal to Brennan, taking her own readiness to leap at him for his own good down a notch, relaxing by degrees. So she wasn't expecting Emma to launch herself at her, falling under the weight of the other woman with a startled croak as the air rushed from her lungs. Instinct to retaliate warred with instinct to cause no harm to her team-mate for a moment as her sight took on a sharper view and her eyes became the burning orbs of a tiger's. 

Then the electric pulse went over their heads and she gave up trying to breathe in favour of rolling to shield Emma from the suddenly flying debris and shower of bright sparks from million-dollar equipment that was now worth a whole lot less. Somewhere above her she heard someone cry out, but it was distorted, her sensitive hearing disabled for the moment by the concussive force. It could even have been her, and it didn't seem the blast would ever stop. 

  
"Ah, Ms Riley." 

Mason Eckhart looked up from his computer screen as his latest and, he had to grudgingly admit, most promising aide de camp approached his desk. 

"Tell me some ... excellent ... news." 

Jude smiled, the tight lipped and polite expression she had discovered it best to use when Eckhart was in this particular mood. A smile with just a hint of cruelty, just a hint of cunning, and exactly the right amount of blind stupidity that ensured you didn't rate as a risk. Of course, in her experience, some agents had really taken the last bit of common sense a touch too far; it was such a privilege to watch Darwinian notion at work in a closed environment though. Who was she to complain? 

"Every stage so far has been completed precisely as projected." 

She began to hand over the clip board with its heavy load of paper, every little bit of information on her assigned project there was. Eckhart was legendary for noticing even a single requisition form missing if it was to do with his pet obsession of Mutant X, let alone the details of something as important as this. 

He waved it away and sat back in his chair, folding his arms as he regarded her thoughtfully. She kept her expression perfectly neutral, waiting for him to speak. 

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to read through that, give me a summary, if you would." 

A tiny nod and she had to give a slight smile. Of course he would read through it, later. This was a test, to see how well she was prepared, how fast she could adapt. Everything was a test of worthiness, even for those like her. 

"As anticipated, members of Mutant X broke into the Gen-Core facility and extracted the information we planted. In the process, we were able to infect an item of their clothing with X-287 and Doctor Allerage estimates that they will begin to show symptoms within twenty four hours of exposure." 

She paused, giving her boss a moment to gloat in before she continued with the less stellar news. It wasn't a complete disaster, but Eckhart had no shades of grey, there was success, or there was failure. 

"The signal of the tracer program that was hidden in the information has not yet been picked up, but I have been assured by the technical department that it is only a matter of time, the worm that was attached to it has already begun returning data so their location will undoubtedly follow." 

There was the scowl, but she smiled and continued on regardless, certain of just one thing. He needed her. The technical department may well be subjected to a sudden and surgical re-shuffle, but for the moment she was safe. There wasn't nearly enough rope for her to hang herself yet, for a start. 

"There has been one interesting anomaly, which may represent a wild-card factor in this operation." 

The scowl became an arched eyebrow of interest. If nothing else, Mason Eckhart certainly seemed to have a morbid fascination with things going wrong. His pessimism was well enough justified, but the light in his eyes behind the yellow-tinted Andy Warhol glasses was still a little disconcerting in it's sudden sharp attention. His voice was a, restrained, near purr. 

"Do tell." 

She unconsciously ran her tongue quickly over dry lips; this was where the report got tricky. Even with the fifteen minutes warning she was wanted in the office, she still wasn't sure what slant to put on the information. 

"It seems one of the members of Mutant X may have already contracted X-287 somehow. He is showing signs of the early stages; although it's possible the evolution is natural. It seems unlikely, however. And ... he is the Elemental of the team." 

"Mr Mulwray?" Eckhart nodded the answer to his own rhetorical question. "In the short time I had his company, I did have the chance to note he was a near compulsively contrary young man. Must be those regrettable criminal impulses. Naturally, he would have to make things difficult now." 

There was silence for a long moment, Eckhart thinking as Jude cleared her thoughts and expression and starred straight ahead like the good employee she was trying so hard to be. 

"Given we've already ascertained Elementals cannot carry the virus, only catch it, I think it is safe to assume he will not be a factor in this. However, should the opportunity present itself, feel free to remove him from the equation." 

It seemed the meeting was over, she nodded once and walked back towards the door as he once more turns his attention to the computer screen. 

  
Jesse blinked slowly; his eyes felt like they were full of glue as he bought a hand up to clear them and only received a greater stinging sensation for his trouble. It took him a moment to realise that might just be because he was rubbing the blood from a dozen small cuts into them. Vaguely the memory came of holding up his hands to protect his face in the second before he had managed to take on the density of rock and cover Adam as best he could. 

It was still dark when he at last managed to blink out the last of the gunk from watering eyes, and for a panicked moment he thought he was blind before focus slowly came and he realised that, for the first time, he was seeing Sanctuary completely powered down. Of course it was dark, they lived in a glorified cave. Slowly, bit-by-bit, he tried to piece together what had happened as he slowly began to move. Emma had dived at Shalimar first; he remembered that because it had made him freeze for a moment. Right. Getting somewhere. Then ... then ... Brennan had turned to run, faster than anything he'd ever seen. It had been like a blur, not a man, unless that was a concussion playing tricks. But he hadn't run fast enough because then ... well, it got hazy after things started exploding. He'd held his density as long as he could, but it had gone on for so long. Longer than he could hold his breath, and then he and Adam both must have been knocked down and he'd entered the happy world of being out for the count. 

Adam. Shalimar. Emma. Brennan. 

He made it to his hands and knees, not daring to move further in case he trod on someone. He could hear breathing, that was a good sign, and it was the deep, even, breath of sleep rather than the shallow rattle of the injured. Even better. 

To his left, a patch of shadow moved a touch. He whispered, though for the life of him he didn't know why. It wasn't like those sleeping wouldn't want to be woken. 

"Adam?" 

"Jesse?" 

That was Adam's voice. A rush of relief went through him; his lack of control over his powers hadn't killed anyone. It didn't even occur to him Brennan might be thinking exactly the same thing, or even to throw the blame at another he was so ready to berate himself for. Right now, he just wanted a sound off to know everyone was okay. 

"You hurt?" 

"No. No, I'm fine, I think. Emma? Shalimar? Brennan?" 

Adam's tone was steady; none of the fear or desperation Jesse knew had been in his own. Probably best to let him take over, especially with the smell of smoke still heavy in the air, Shalimar at least would appreciate the calm. 

"A-Adam?" 

Emma. 

"Are you hurt?" 

"No, I don't think so. But I can't move, I think Shal is covering me, and she's not conscious." 

Adam listened to Emma's pitch rising from the mumbling of the newly conscious to the suddenly awake and quickly distressed. He felt the fear rise, and ruthlessly quelled it, keeping his tone even and in control. 

"Take a pulse, she's probably fine." 

There was a terrible moment of silence as Emma tried to take a pulse without jarring the other woman too greatly. If there were broken bones, she didn't want to make then any worse. She breathed out her relief with her words, as hushed as Jesse's had been. 

"Pulse, strong and steady. I'm going to try and move her and check for injury." 

Adam finally stood; reasonably sure he was unlikely to step on anyone. Brennan, he remembered, had been near the door some fifteen feet away. He felt Jesse rise to his feet beside him, and he knew both of them were looking at the still form in the doorway. 

"I'm going to try and get the back-up generator working, we need light. Jesse ...?" 

In the darkness he just about saw Jesse's head turn to him, eyes glittering black in the last embers of the dying sparks. 

"Yeah?" 

"See if you can find some sedatives, I don't think we want a repeat of that any time soon." 

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**Notes**  
A no-prize to the folks that spotted the token cultural reference and pop-culture reference in chapter 2. Your choice as to whether Brennan had watched Andromeda, or read Nietzsche ::grins:: 


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody elses. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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"Mr Eckhart ... Sir?" 

Mason watched the young man who sidled into his office with the unblinking attention of a snake, taking his amusement where he could and definitely finding it in the tremble of the messenger's hands, the breaking note in the voice when he spoke. 

"Ms R-Riley s-sent me w-with ..." 

The office boy trailed away and just held the slim manila file he was clutching for dear life with sweaty hands out towards Eckhart, a man he had never even seen, who was so far away from his lowly position the Tree of Hierarchy went through four pieces of paper and a footnote before lines met. Dimly through his terror he realised he must have done something to annoy Ms Riley. Why couldn't she have just poisoned him, or had him shot like all the other supervisors did to unwanted interns. Must have done more than annoyed her. Maybe he'd forgotten the sugar in her Earl Grey one morning, or carelessly let one of her rival Operations Managers look through her private documents. What ever it was, his days were clearly numbered. 

Pointedly, without speaking, Eckhart looked from the files to his desk. It took a moment, but the cretin standing before him finally got the idea and dropped the paperwork into his In Box. Waiting until the boy had scuttled backwards out of the office before reaching for the file and opening it, he read the contents of the single sheet of paper. Then he read it once more, the fingers of his unemployed hand tapping out a slow beat on the desk with the hollow, wooden, sound of a coffin tattoo. Thoughtfully, he crumpled the file into a ball in his fist and reached forward to the intercom on his desk, pressing a button with one gloved finger. 

"Send Ms Riley to my office, naturally at her earliest convenience. Cancel my appointments for today, I do not expect to be disturbed for _any_ reason." 

Having no interest in whatever inane reply his secretary began to stutter, he released the button immediately and sat back in his chair to smooth out the paper and read the short paragraph just one more time. Very slowly a smile began to grow, the lines of it holding not even a trace of humour. 
    
    D.O.D. SENSORS REPORT MASSIVE ELECTRICAL POWER SPIKE OVER ...

  
Adam was proud of his ability to remain calm in a crisis, not just because it was a virtue, but because of how hard he'd had to work to achieve it. He had quickly found that, when you rank among the most intelligent men in history, able to do almost any conceivable mental task with ease, being proud of anything became an issue. But the logical approach, the intellectual over the emotional ... that had gone against his once excitable, overly energetic, nature; and that he had been proud of. 

He pressed his forehead against the cold metal of the stubbornly silent generator and took a deep breath to aid in resisting the growing urge to hit it repeatedly with a hammer. For the last two hours the machine had steadily resisted every effort at making it work, even though he had been sure he had made a serviceable repair after the first half hour. There was some thought hovering in his mind, something he was missing, and it was just on the tip of his ... 

"Shalimar's woken up, I thought you'd want to know as soon as she did. A few bruises and a fractured rib, but she's fine. Her hearing will be tinny for a while though, and she's having difficulty reverting back to human sight. It's sort of useful though, I can make sure she doesn't sneak off the chair just by checking to see where the glowing orange eyes are ... here." 

The foggy train of thought slid away as he turned to see the shadow shape of Emma pick her way through the room debris towards him, taking the cup of coffee she held out to him automatically when she stepped into his pool of lamp light. Finally his mind caught up with her words and he gave a wide smile of relief as he sipped the welcome drink and then replied. 

"I'll come and see her now, I can't get this functioning, there's no point in wasting more time on it." He held the cup up a little, almost as a toast. "Thank you." 

Emma's smile was as warm as ever, despite everything that had happened and he found himself gaining back a little of his usual optimistic equilibrium in response. Briefly he wondered whether she was using her abilities to nudge him towards good, but had to admit if only to himself that he really didn't mind if that was the case. Besides, there were more pressing questions to ask, and he had to concentrate on those even more closely now the generator was a dead loss. 

"Has Jesse managed to find any sedatives? Is Brennan okay?" 

He winced a touch at the order he had asked in, wondering if it made him sound as heartless as he thought it did. But he couldn't honestly say he had gotten the priorities wrong. Emma didn't seem to find it particularly shocking as she replied as briskly as they were walking down the corridor, giving her report to his questions quickly and concisely. 

"None that didn't need computer regulated dosage, and he remembered how strange the nervous systems of Elementals can be when you drug them; he didn't want to risk it. But Brennan hasn't woken up yet anyway." 

Now there was a note of worry creeping into her tone, despite obvious efforts to keep it out. He gave her shoulder a light squeeze as he moved past her into the lab they had made their central base of operations. "He's going to be fine Emma, just tapped himself out, that's all." 

With a slight frown he considered his words as he walked towards the examining chair that had become Shalimar's recovery bed for the moment. There was that sensation of the answer just out of reach again, and once more he couldn't quite put his finger on it. So much for being the world's smartest man. 

Shalimar's smile was almost glinting in the glow of the storm lamps dotted around the lab that gave just enough light to be comforting, but not quite enough to take the shadows from the walls or ceiling. It made it seem far more of a cave than it ever had before, even when he had first discovered the colossal cavity in the side of the cliff and decided to make it home. As Emma had said, the orange hued cat's eyes flickered with no sign of fading as they usually did. For the moment he decided not to worry, it could be any number of things causing it, not least of which was a knee-jerk reaction to being in a nearly completely dark environment. 

"Hey Adam, will you tell Jess' and Emma to let me get up?" 

"I could, but then I'd get glared at and I'm just not sure I could handle that right now." 

He kept his tone light, but made it perfectly clear she was going nowhere until he had made sure of her health. With a disgruntled expression, the wild cat settled back against the chair again, picking absently at the lightly shredded leather armrest with sharp finger nails that artfully began to make the shreds into tears. 

"It's nearly pitch black for you guys, how could you see them glare?" 

"Don't have to, I can feel it." 

As they quietly bantered he found his diagnosis matching Emma's, there was nothing serious beyond a possibly broken, but more likely cracked, rib, and that had been taped. Unlike the notoriously difficult to medicate Elementals, Ferals could take almost anything you threw at them and painkillers were easy enough to find. He decided to relent, the last thing any of them needed was a cabin-fevered Shalimar. 

"You can get up..." He forestalled her rush to her feet with a gentle hand to her arm. "... _if_ you promise me you will tell someone if you begin to get dizzy, nauseous or drowsy. That's a nasty bump on your head and I want to make sure you haven't cracked your skull." 

She slid off the chair and held two fingers up with an earnest expression "Scouts honour ... " 

Echoing footsteps coming towards them down the corridor became a moving light that the shadows dance warmly on the fire stained walls, and then finally became Jesse. Emma had a cup of coffee to hand him in a second, as if she'd heard him coming from further away than even Shalimar could have. Once more Adam had a slight suspicion she was using her rapport to ensure everything went as smoothly and calmly as possible, even with the little things like having a hot drink to hand. At some point when he was feeling brave enough to face the fact she'd probably made a fire out of some of his books, he'd ask how she'd made the coffee at all. 

"Well, he's put to bed, and he hasn't moved for an hour." Jesse paused as he look abstractly at the mug in his hand, then back to Adam. "But it's weird, he was _really_ hot when I first moved him. I thought my hand would be burned; we're talking hotter than this coffee. When I left, he was cold enough he should have been iced over, but his pulse is fine. He's fine, he's just not waking up." 

Emma at last gave Shalimar her cup and then stood back, looking between to the two men. "Is that good, or bad? I mean, do we want him awake right now?" 

Adam drained the last of his mug and set it down on the computer panel, shaking his head slightly. "To be honest, I have no idea. Did you manage to make any contact in his mind at all? Anything, however small, that can tell us what's happening in there. We need him to get the generator working again, but by the same token, he might just blow it and us up ... " 

He stopped and mouthed the last few words to himself, realising at last what the flyaway thought eluding him had been. But he waited for confirmation, for Emma to tell him what she had seen, even as his mind at last began to work out the puzzle it now had all the pieces for. 

"I could hardly read anything just before it happened, and I haven't been able to get anything at all since ... but it was like something else was in there with him, and he was fighting it ... I think. Or, he was fighting me, I don't know. It was all pretty crazy spinning in there." 

With his head nodding slowly, Adam saw his hypothesis begin to be validated, and he spoke slowly into the silence that Emma's subdued words had left. 

"I still can't say for sure what caused this in the first place, but it's clear this is what Brennan has been hiding. Hopefully we'll be able to ask him when he wakes up. But I think I know why we can't get any of the electrics working, including him." 

The other three watched him as he began to pace, it was an oddly comforting thing to see, a habit of his that they had come to associate with him finding the answers. 

"If Brennan had one hundred percent lost control, we would almost certainly be dead and the machinery would be completely fried. Now, he obviously lost control at the beginning, which meant he must have regained it as the charge was being released, realised what was happening..." 

Jesse's eyes widened as he realised where Adam's theory was headed, he couldn't quite help finishing the sentence. "... and he reversed the power flow back into himself. He alternated the current." 

"Yes!" Adam pointed at the other man with a nod and a smile as it all began to come together, at least a little bit. "And if he's alternating, nothing electrical can possibly work because he's constantly draining electricity and releasing it, putting everything into neutral. Which is why he's going hot and cold. I bet we couldn't build up a static charge right now even if we tried, let alone get the generator working. 

Shalimar spoke slowly, following most of the explanation, but preferring to be entirely sure about one question that had not been answered to her satisfaction. "Is he going to be okay?" 

A troubled silence greeted her question, until finally Adam gave a small smile. "I think so. I hope so. His bio-chemistry and synapses must have altered radically to make him capable of this, it's unlikely it won't have compensated to allow for health." 

That seemed to satisfy them for the moment, each taking a moment of peace and quiet after this small break through to have a moment of needed respite. He took that moment to quietly leave them talking, stepping out into the corridor and towards Brennan's room. There was one small detail he had not told them, could not tell them. That an evolution this fast was not even slightly natural, and he had no idea what had caused it. Leaps of logic and intuitive guess work were something of their speciality by now, but he just couldn't see how this had happened. Maybe he had fewer pieces of the puzzle than he thought. 

  
Another four hours until they began to show signs of the virus. Jude forced herself to stop checking her watch and concentrate on calculating the probable outcomes of the unexpected electrical surge that had been intercepted over the DoD channels. It would have wiped out the computers, possibly the disk that she had gone to so much trouble to provide them with. 

Had there been time for Adam to decrypt it? No, no she didn't think so, and neither did Eckhart. Which meant there was no way for them to know they were infected, no way for them to work on a cure. Chances of their survival were diminishing by the hour, and chances of her survival were diminishing by the minute, there was no way she would come out of this intact. It was time to take drastic action. 

Quickly she changed out of her plain business suit into the casual clothes she always kept a set of in the office, for those frequent times she had to work late and attend some function or other immediately afterwards. The dark red hair she kept back in a bun and hated with a deep and abiding passion was let down to a less severe plait, the glasses she hoped made people take her more seriously were replaced by contacts and pumps were replaced with a comfortable and battered pair of Docs. She knew she now looked about eighteen, despite her twenty-five years. More importantly, she now looked very little like Jude Riley. 

In five minutes she was ready to leave, and did so, passing as few check points as possible on the way out. It was entirely possible Eckhart would bless her plan, but it was also just as possible he'd take the next four hours to personally introduce her to the delights of being the R&D guinea pig. 

The cab ride to the airport was quick enough, and a plane easy to charter once she had greased the right palms with her expense account money, neglecting to tell them they might be flying over an electrical dead zone, after all, that was what they invented parachutes for. It was time to pay a house call. 

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**Notes**  
Thank you to everyone that's taken the time to review! 


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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At first she hadn't noticed, the weight of the others emotions pressing on her mind with comforting and welcome familiarity she had instigated. The trepidation and fear she could soothe, it gave her something to concentrate on besides her own internal versions of the emotions. It wasn't until she tried to disconnect that she finally realised she couldn't. 

Emma paused for a second, allowing the panic in with a rush that cleared her head of outside information for a moment, then resumed stirring the sugar into her coffee. This probably couldn't be counted as a good thing, but between Brennan's stubborn refusal to wake up and Shalimar's increasingly wild pacing and continually glowing eyes, she couldn't bear the thought of adding any more to Adam's 'must save the world from...' list. 

Perhaps if she found the extent that she was open, she could start 'zipping' her mind shut from the beginning. It had to be the stress, the over-use, all she had to do was stay calm. Taking a deep breath she set the coffee down and closed her eyes, looking in, and then out. 

_** p:a:i:n:f:e:a:r:j:o:y:b:o:r:e:d:c:u:r:i:o:u:s:l:i:f:e:d:e:a:t:h:v:i:o:l:e:n:c:e:p:e:a:c:e:t:e:r:r:o:r:w:o:r:l:d:m:a:d:d:a:r:k:h:u:n:g:r:y ... oblivion**_

Jesse saw her begin to fall out of the corner of his eye, turning to race across the room towards her, phasing to avoid tripping over any of the many obstacles shadowed by the flickering light. In a baseball slide he managed to cushion her fall, holding her tightly as she convulsed with a scream trapped in her throat. 

"Adam! Shal!" 

Without the once constant background hum of the machinery, his yell carried and echoed away. 

"I avoided them about two corridors over, Adam's declared open season on Shalimar with a tranq gun" 

Jesse blinked up at the person entering from the solid black of the doorway, trying to force his eyes to make out more than an unfamiliar outline as he desperately tried to work out how to keep Emma from hurting herself while she seized, but still be able to take on the new comer. His wish list wasn't looking wonderful, but talking could always buy him some time. 

"I'm guessing you're not the electric company, so want to explain what you're doing here?" 

At last the intruder's form took on a visible appearance. The light glinted off red hair and the silver metal on her jacket, but the rest of her seemed to swallow the light whole. The face was pale, lips set into a stubborn line he recognised well enough from most of the women in his life. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it, damn the torpedoes and go ahead. There was a syringe in her hand; she began to deftly roll up the sleeve of the woman still shaking in his arms as she spoke. 

"This is just a sedative." 

Calm eyes met his, obviously waiting for his permission before administering the dose. Jesse gave a hesitant nod, if the stranger wanted them dead or out, there were better ways to get it done. 

"Yeah, okay." 

The needle found a vein and he watched as slowly the yellow tinted liquid inside was pushed in, almost transfixed by it to take his mind off the worry vying with pressing questions clamouring in his head. By the time the injection was done, he could already feel the spasms beginning to fade, Emma's breathing evening out from the harsh panting to the steadiness of sleep. Gently he disengaged himself and lifted her up onto an examination table. After pillowing her head on her jacket, brushing the hair from her forehead and watching for a moment longer to make sure there would be no side effects, he found himself without any more distractions. Damn. 

Making his smile as confident as he could, he turned to face their guest and crossed his arms casually. 

"I'm Jesse. Who was that masked woman?" 

A twitch at the corner of her mouth was the first response to his admittedly poor joke, but after a few moments she spoke, as perfunctorily as she had before. 

"My name is Jude. Jude Riley. Any Beatles references will be dealt with harshly." 

"Gotcha, no 'Hey Jude'. Here's the million dollar question, and don't think I'm not grateful, but what are you doing here and who do you work for?" 

That at last got a blink out of the poker face; he was starting to think she had the emotional range of a carrot. It didn't seem she had a reply to hand either, as she bought herself time slipping the syringe into a med pack, then putting that into the black bag slung over her shoulder. For a moment the to and fro of zips was the only sound other than Emma's still slightly wild breathing. 

He wanted to sit with her, talk and see if it would bring her out of it. He wanted to go fetch Adam, and settle back into the happy belief that the old man could make anything right. He wanted Shalimar to tease him about the panic he was sure was written plain across his features. He wanted Brennan to wander in reading a book by candlelight. What he had was an intruder wearing a knowing expression and a shortness of breath he couldn't shake. But, while he was dreaming, he also wanted a Lotus Elise and a small Caribbean island to call his own. 

"I'm an Operations Manager at Genomex, currently fronting up one of their satellite companies, Gen-Core. You've all been infected with a large dose of a very fatal virus we hoped Adam would be able to cure for us. The information was on the disk you were kind enough to steal from Gen-Core. We just weren't counting on one of you having contracted it already. So, now I'm here to help, bring you up to speed and take Adam back to a working lab. Preferably before you all succumb and Mr. Eckhart has me killed or stuck in stasis." 

Jude looked pointedly at the LED readout of her watch as Jesse blinked. 

"Not much time." 

  
How long he'd been awake he wasn't entirely sure, it seemed like forever, but with conscious thought only kicking in seconds ago. Maybe. Dimly he could hear the sound of something scratching at his door, but his legs seemed to be operating independently of his will and refusing to even think about moving. Maybe he'd had a late night, his tongue definitely had that 'one too many' feeling and the roaring in his head was just about numbed enough to suggest there was alcohol involved somewhere. 

Vaguely he noted his body couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be warm, or freezing. If he could have moved, he'd probably be throwing the cover on and off all night. But he couldn't, so that was okay. It was nice to just float a while, the instinct that he should care about something never quite making it through to where he was worried. 

Then, probably in a last ditch attempt, Brennan's mind chose to present him with the picture of his team-mates flying back as an electric pulse, his electric pulse, hit them. And suddenly, the last of the sedatives left his system in a cold rush. The noise outside was gone, but he didn't know how long it had been gone. At least he was back in control, gingerly sitting up and taking stock. 

Oddly, he felt better. Not cured of whatever had happened, but releasing the charge had helped for the moment. For a brief second he smiled, hoping it was a sign he was getting well, and then he remembered again how hard Jesse had flown back into Adam and how scared Emma had looked and the smile died. If he was in his room, they must have been okay. He nodded to himself as he pulled on his shoes with as much speed as his still slightly drugged self could muster. They had to be okay. 

He hit the door at a staggering half run, the crude lock someone had managed to work on the outside with chain and padlock not lasting a moment against an ex-thief with a paperclip. The scratching of earlier was discounted as a drug haze, he ran on down the storm lamp lit hall, failing to notice the deep gouges on the outside of the door that swung shut behind him. 

He had to say, Adam wasn't a light man. It came from having more muscle than Brennan felt was really necessary for a geneticist. And, on that note, he was suspicious of any scientist with reactions like that too. It said they probably spend a lot of time ducking from the contents of whatever test tube mix was about to explode. Not confidence inspiring. But given the scientist in question was currently pressing him into the floor with a combination of weight and the business end of a rifle at his back, he decided not to mention it. 

"Hi Adam. Uh, you can get off now ... ?" 

Adam didn't move. 

"Well, that depends. I just got the generator working and figured you must have woken up. If you think there's _any_ chance of a repeat performance, I'm going to have to sedate you again." There was a pause as Brennan tried to work out whether he was going to go haywire again that Adam spoke more conciliatorily into. "I've just had to play cat and mouse with Shalimar, she's tranq'ed in her rooms as well. I can't take any chances right now with your mutations, well, mutating. Sorry." 

"Yeah, I understand. But I'm tapped. In maybe three or four hours I'll have to be put under or something, but until then, no harm no foul. I couldn't make a charge if I tried." He spoke quickly into the silence above him of a man definitely being pushed too far. "And I haven't tried! I just know." 

"Okay. You don't seem to be deteriorating as fast as Shalimar did, perhaps it's a different strain of ... whatever the hell this is." Adam stood and reached down a hand to help the other man up, trying not to wince at the slivers of pain from the multitude of scratches from the claws of the Feral. 

"Do you ... you think I bought this in?" 

Adam shook his head as they started towards the lab. "No, or if you did something else has happened to it. The generator should be charging to full in the next couple of minutes, then we'll have light and maybe, if we're lucky, we'll have computers and I can try find answers before..." 

The lights flickered onto their emergency setting, casting the corridor in tainted white neon that bled the colour from skin and turned dark shades into black. 

Turning into the doorway of the med lab with Brennan a step behind him, Adam took a moment to survey the scene with one arched brow, unable to quite work up the shock or surprise the situation would normally warrant. 

Emma was out on one of the examination tables, moving slowly in her sleep as if fighting off a nightmare. Jesse was on his feet, holding a woman he had never seen before by the neck and about to lift. The woman was kicking out but meeting no resistance or finding herself hitting rock, as he seemed to be controlling which parts of his body had density, and which had none. 

He spoke calmly as both those in the land of the awake turned to look at him, apparently only now realising there was light as they blinked into it. 

"Jesse, put her down. And I would like you to concentrate on staying solid for me, please." 

"Why? Hey Brennan! How's Shalimar?" Automatically, Jesse obeyed, releasing Jude who turned to lean a hand against the wall as she coughed for air and cursed his ancestors in a mix of Spanish and English that, were he paying more than half attention to, he would have found entertainingly inventive. 

Adam stepped forward to take Emma's pulse, finding it steady and strong, if fast. Not dangerous though, not yet. He had a fair idea what must have happened to her, mentally berating himself for not telling her to stop reading people when he had realised she was. Her closed eyes moved in REM, the sedative she was obviously under not bringing peace to a Telempath who's powers were feeding her emotions from the population of a planet. 

Brennan waved half-heartedly and crossed over towards the woman whose tirade was now winding down, watching her closely as Adam replied to Jesse. 

"Shalimar has gone almost completely Feral. There's very little there to communicate with any more, I have had to sedate her and lock her up." He kept his tone as matter of fact as he could, trying not to betray the sick fear in his heart, the horror of watching a young woman who had an uneasy alliance with her nature at the best of times overwhelmed by it. 

"Yes, the virus works on Ferals the fastest, although we haven't been able to work out why. Really, it should be Elementals, given their genetics are unstable at the best of times ..." 

Jude trailed away as Adam stared thoughtfully at her, mustering a polite smile that failed to reach eyes gone winter. She had thought, from what Eckhart had alluded to, Adam was the soft one of the two men, the bleeding heart. But at his expression, she had to conclude Eckhart was fooling himself. There was nothing soft there, there just wasn't Eckhart's particular favoured brand of insane fanaticism. He held out a hand. 

"Adam Xero. And you are going to help us." 

She nodded, taking the offered hand and shaking it by habit. 

"Yea, that's why I'm here." 

"Excellent. After you've helped, we'll discuss how they became infected. And I would imagine the outcome of that discussion will fall heavily on how much help you've been." 

No, she was wrong, he was as insanely fanatical as Eckhart, he just chose not to flaunt it. Stasis suddenly looked good. 

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**Notes**  
Sorry about the time this chapter has taken! The story _will_ be finished, honest. Hopefully the next chapter will be out much quicker :) It's suddenly occured to me Jude could be called a kinda Mary-Sue. I really hope not though. If she starts looking that way, slap me. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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Crouched deep in the shadows, she was utterly still. Dirty blond hair was hanging over a face barely recognisable with the lips drawn back over carnivore's teeth and eyes glowing a hellish tone. Her nails were pin sharp, flexing in and out of her fingers and feeling so right. 

Finally the sleek cat in the body of Shalimar began to pace the perimeter of the room, the cage, snarling softly deep in it's throat. How dare he shoot her. How _dare_ he. _Her_. She licked the last of his blood from her claws, cleansing them one by one and savouring the coppery tang. Too bad it wasn't hot. If she hadn't been hunting the trespasser, he could never had done this, but she had welcomed him on her hunt. Tried to show him the claws at Brennan's door. 

He should have known better, she would never have hurt him, or any of them. They were her pack, weak and slow as they were. Blunt toothed and clawless, helpless. She would have protected them. But now she had been challenged, and he had been stupid enough not to kill her for her place. 

She wouldn't make that mistake, not with any of them. 

  
"So, what you're saying is, if I don't find a cure for this virus within sixteen hours, my team will die and shortly after that so will the vast majority of the mutant population. But not before the virus' effects on them cause wide spread death and destruction on a massive scale." 

Jude didn't look the still dangerously calm man in the eyes as she replied. "Essentially, yes." 

"And Eckhart considered infecting my team with ten times the dose they would receive normally from the air-born variant was more conducive to me helping him than, say, a politely worded message on the disk we stole?" 

"Actually, it was my idea. He wasn't going to approach you at all. I considered a Postit note, but this is so much more efficient. None of that awkward bargaining, pleading and recriminations stage where you invariably give in anyway because of your overwhelming sense of guilt. I saw the file, you've helped us with loose virus' before, you'll help with this one." 

For a moment she thought he would snap and go for her throat just as Jesse had done. To be fair, she probably wouldn't blame him. In his place, she wouldn't be settling for a steady glare and a clenching of the hands into tight fists, she would be sharpening her Task Unit and giving orders with words like 'kill' and 'slowly' in them. Apparently he was a better 'man' than she, or alternatively he was plotting something _really_ nasty by way of retaliation. 

"Well, we had better be on our way then hadn't we?" 

Adam shifted his attention to where Brennan was almost literally hovering over the two figures laid side by side on the lab-beds. Jesse had finally stopped fighting the sedative, the effect of it halting his random phasing in and out of existence for the moment. Definitely became worse when the infected party was conscious, perhaps it was feeding in someway off the chemicals released by the brain when active. He would have to isolate the virus into a culture and test against that, but that would take weeks he didn't have. 

He jerked his thoughts away from the ways he could speed the process up to find the attentive gaze of Jude upon him. 

"What do you want to do with them?" A slight nod to the three across the room, none able to hear the muttered conversation even if two of them weren't out. "I don't recommend taking them with us, although I'm sure Mr Eckhart would be willing to make them safe for the duration. There are always spare stasis pods." 

Brennan glanced up at the two talking in lower murmurs, not quite able to make out the exact words, but body language was speaking volumes just perfectly. The woman he'd labelled "Ms Evil Gene Nazi 2002" was standing tall, but relaxed. Either convinced she was in complete control of the situation, or trying to convince them she was. Adam had an aura of barely contained energy in contrast, adrenaline just being held in check. But they seemed to have reached some kind of decision when they both turned and looked at him in a measuring fashion. He stood straighter and let the suspicious apprehension narrow his eyes, bouncing lightly on his feet as they approached. 

When neither appeared to be willing to speak first, his misapprehension hardened further, into a dark foreboding. Sedatives were going to be a big topic of conversation, he just knew it. 

"Okaaay, what? Sleep time again? Hope I get a bedtime story ... there's this cool one where this guy slept for a hundred years, and then woke up. The important part, you know, the _moral_, being that he _woke up_." 

Adam held his hands out, attempting to placate in the face of what he recognised as mindless babble. He'd had enough of it running commentary in his own mind for the last twenty-four hours to have even become something of an expert when he heard it. This loosely translated as 'I'm a tough guy, so there's no way I'm worried about this, but tell me it's going to be okay anyway so I don't have to ask and look like a girly-man in the presence of the enemy, even if she is cute.' 

"Brennan, it's going to be okay." The other man subsided into silence, still watching him warily. He had to admit this wasn't like the Elemental, even when he was under stress he had never shown signs of being quite so unsteady. Then again, he'd never become a walking EMP waiting to happen before either. "Ms Riley and I are going to go to the Genomex Labs where we have a hope in hell of doing something constructive with the next fifteen hours. I need you to hold out as long as you can, someone has to keep Emma and Jesse sedated. If you think you can do the same for Shalimar do, but you might have to use the rifle." 

Okay, he hadn't been expecting that, and frowned as he replied. "But ... I've got two hours, three at most before I go ..." he mimed an explosion with his hands, making the sound of a soda can being opened. A surprisingly accurate replacement for the actual sound the electricity had made as it disrupted everything in it's path. 

"I know. Leave it as long as you can, and then ..." 

Yeah. Then. Brennan gave a curt nod, his eyes meeting Jude's for just a moment, and he found a gleeful enjoyment in seeing her take a step back from whatever dark expression he was wearing. Perfect. He grinned and allowed a small charge to build, not leashed in his hands now, but crackling in a nimbus around his entire body. The electrics dancing over his eyes and through his hair were, for him nothing more than the touch of a gentle breeze; for her one touch would be almost instantaneously deadly. Before Adam could step in, he pointed one finger wreathed in blue fire. 

"You get him in there, he does the job, and then you let him out. If I have to come in and extract him, I'm going to be _really_ annoyed." 

An empty threat and they both knew it, so maybe she was just humouring him as she gulped thickly and took one step back, stammering. 

"Well, naturally. We have an agreement now." 

Adam coughed once, then passed Brennan to give one last check to Emma and Jesse. Damn, he didn't want to leave them, none of them. Gently he felt for pulse, assured himself there was no fever as yet, and generally delayed until it was Jude's own turn to cough. 

"I was under the assumption you would like to leave within the next week or so?" 

"I'm coming." 

Expressionless he walked towards the door, and he didn't look back. 

  
The helicopter pick-up was almost immediate and the journey to the Genomex head building passed in a blur of familiarity. How many times had he been rushed here in a helicopter? In the early days it seemed like it had been every morning, and no few midnight scrambles. There was always some kind of crisis, or a miraculous new breakthrough that needed his immediate attention as the only one with the capacity to actually understand what had happened. He had always like the view of the grounds from above, the security of looking down on the project like he felt it looked down on the people it was meant to be trying to help. 

'Playing God so you don't have to' - it wasn't the company slogan, but it should have been. 

Very little had changed, now he had the leisure to actually note faces as they entered the building, he could swear it was the same security guard on day shift. Pete ... something. Bred tropical fish in his spare time to try and make the college fund for his kid just that bit fatter. Pete didn't return his smile. 

Jude's voice came through to him after a moment, she was tugging gently on his sleeve. "I said, Mr Eckhart will want to see you before I take you to the labs. I'll get a team organised while you're in there so you won't have to do any prepping when you get out, okay?" 

Adam managed a curt nod and left her where she stood, confidently making his way to Mason's office alone. As he strode across the floor, trying not to look at the stasis pods, he glanced up to the private view windows onto the hub area from Mason's little version of a sky box. The man was standing behind them, looking down at him with nothing but that flat arrogance. Well, if he wanted a verbal spar today, he was going to be out of luck, right now his host was just a waste of time. 

Eckhart had re-seated himself by the time Adam opened the door to his office and didn't feel the need to get up as he studied his nemesis for a moment. Nemesis. Such a melodramatic word, but what they were. And he had always had a compulsion to use words as precisely as he could. 

"Good afternoon Adam. Do stop lurking in my doorway and come in, you'll make security nervous. This won't take a moment, I'm sure you want to be getting to work as soon as possible." 

He flicked a casual glance to the clock, ticking quietly away, on the polished surface of his desk. 

"What do you want Mason?" 

"Well, I was considering gloating for a few minutes, followed by a few well placed slights on your team, your manhood and your ancestors. But that's getting remarkably tedious. You know, I really never thought it would, but the charm has entirely gone out of our relationship. So, while you're here you will be accompanied at all times by the gorilla-like gentleman cracking his knuckles behind you; otherwise I sincerely wish you the very best of luck with your vaunted genius discovering a cure. I'm starting to run out of places to freeze the afflicted." 

Adam thinned his lips and bit down hard on a retort, he had no time for this stupidity. "Fine." He called to the missing link who was to be his own personal shadow as he spun to walk out, "Heel!". 

  
There was a scratching at the door and it held her attention fixated to the spot, as if she could see through the barrier and get a clear line on her prey. Every muscle coiled in wait, she balanced lightly on the balls of her feet and the pads of her fingers, crouched down and ready to spring upon whatever came within striking distance. 

Soon, she would have her chance soon. 

And then the great cat could hunt free once more. 

The clawing at the door ceased and she heard the faint sound of footsteps coming closer. Light and sure, a long stride, it could only be Brennan. She licked her lips slowly. 

The light from the corridor outside glinted off sharp white fangs, for a moment Brennan thought he might be fast enough to close the door before the very awake Shalimar, who was meant to be very asleep for another half an hour, sprung at him in a blur. As her weight slammed into him, and the rifle was torn away to rattle to the floor and slide to a stop twenty feet from him he knew one sure thing. He wasn't fast enough to close the door. 

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**Notes**  
Feedback is really appreciated, it lets me know what to do next! ::grins:: What?. You thought I had a plan? :P 


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer** It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
**Want?** Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :) 

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The flickering of the lights cast shadows she could appreciate as she prowled from darkness to darkness through the silent halls, only the background hum of the generator just within her hearing, not enough of a distraction to divert her senses from picking out intruders. Her domain. Her territory. Her killing-ground. She licked the last traces of blood from her lips and stalked on. 

  
"Ms Riley, the only request I have of you is your absence, go away." 

Jude bit back on her immediate inclination to see just how far a test-tube could be pushed up Adam's nose and spun on her heel to leave. 

"Wait." 

The deep temptation to keep walking warred with her orders to be of whatever assistance she could. Her feet seemed to be pro-rebellion, while her neck followed the Scabber route and twisted treacherously to let her look back over her shoulder as she slowed her pace. 

"Yes?" 

Adam was standing looking at her almost distractedly, none of the acid that had been in his tone visible in his expression. 

"There are two things you can help with." 

"My absence _and_ my resignation? Or would Seppuku with a blunt paperclip suffice?" 

"What?" He blinked, and then shook his head irritably as if to both clear it and negate her words. "Don't be ridiculous. No, I need you to get me a sample of blood that does not contain the mutant chromosome." 

"You can have mine. And?" 

There was a puzzled little frown, he obviously hadn't even considered she wasn't one of Genomex' Children. Honestly, the greatest mind in the county and he hadn't noticed she wasn't exploding all over him with terminal prejudice. 

"Can you try and radio the island. Brennan is about half an hour from going critical, I want to make sure he's taken the sedative." 

"And Mr Mulwray will listen to me when I tell him to take it because...?" 

She had a good point. Adam actually stopped watching the test-tube reaction with one eye to give her is full attention as he considered, then shrugged and turned back to it. 

"Because he's not stupid, because he has the well-being of the team to consider, and because you're an attractive female he probably has designs on despite himself. See Bennett to give the blood sample before you go, please. When you've done all that, I'm sure you have people in stasis from before this outbreak, those with the gene and those without it. I'll need samples of both, with clear care to avoid any kind of contamination." 

Her arm stung a little, the bruise from a rushed needle job already forming despite the pressure of the cotton swab and tape over the little puncture wound. But she ignored it as she tried once more to reach the infamous headquarters of the Mutant X team, and received nothing but hissed silence for her trouble. If there had been a power outage, there would have been crackling white static, so something else had obviously gone wrong. Naturally. God forbid anything should go _right_ after all. The shock of it might kill her. 

"Grrrrrssssssssss" 

Well, that was new. 

"Brennan?" 

What could only be termed a growl came again, louder. Her mind blanked for a moment, then clicked too sharply for her comfort into focus. Clearly Shalimar had somehow escaped and was now a large hunting cat wandering about a base with highly dangerous elements in it, even when there was no power. Just for once she would really like to see whether she could withstand the shock of things going well. Just once. 

"Shalimar?" 

Her voice croaked and she tried again, attempting to sound a little less like a tasty frog and more like a soothing, purring, yet dominating older cat. She couldn't say she loved her chances. 

"Shaaalimar, talk to me." 

"Sssshalimar huntsssss." 

There was a moment of what sounded suspiciously like something hitting random buttons at the other end, and the static came at last. Looked like she wasn't getting the Oscar for "Best Supporting Actress In The Role Of A Cat Feral" after all. Damn. Jude stood from the chair, surprised to find herself rehearsing the best manner in which to tell Adam, rather than the best manner in which to tell the man she would see first. 

  
Not only was he starting to make a habit of people slamming into him with force, he was starting to make a habit of waking up groggy and darkly suspicious of something less than healthy happening to him, or around him. They were harder vices to break than smoking. 

Brennan took a breath before opening his eyes, the stab in his ribs telling him that bouncing to his feet and delivering a spinning high kick would probably only result in him falling over and coughing blood. So, maybe not then. Under his lashes he could just about make sense of the blurred forms around him. The lab, he was lying awkwardly on the floor looking up at a shifting ceiling, one numbed leg folded under the other with his arms down like he'd been dragged by the scruff of his neck and dropped. 

He wanted to be sick but knew that to be high on the list of his bad ideas. His entire head hurt and moving just a little felt the same sharp pain there as well. Apart from broken ribs, a torn neck, nausea, dizziness and oh yeah, the sensation of being about to burst with the energy crackling around him, he was fine. On the down side, the meds that had been in his pocket appeared to be entirely gone. Wonderful. 

With more care than he usually gave to anything except bypassing a particularly sensitive alarm, he bought his feet under him into a shaky crouch. So far, so good. Actually standing look a little longer, but he made it, all the while trying to ignore the fact he had no idea what time it was. Did he have minutes left? Seconds? And where the hell was Shalimar? 

The last thing he recalled was her teeth on his jugular, at any other time it would have been a pleasant surprise, but the gnawing had been a bit of a turn off. Not to say he didn't have ex's with the same approach, but there were pretty much ex's for just that reason. 

"Okay Mulwray, focus." He had time. He was sure of that. The electricity was building, but he had a little longer before he blasted himself and everyone else into kingdom come. 

The room still wasn't coming into focus, he added concussion to his list of injuries and staggered towards the still shapes lying where he had left them. Unable to touch for fear of flash frying them, he leaned instead on a chair and tried to use eyesight in bad light alone to determine their states. 

Both were still breathing, though Jesse was hazy around the edges in a way he was certain had nothing to do with his current vision problems. The kid looked like he was having some good dream though, lips curled with that half serene, half amused quirk that he'd come to recognise as cover for a hundred and one things. Surely not while he was sleeping too though … nah. 

Under his breath, uncaring of the possible proximity of the literal man-eater his other team mate had become, he murmured. 

"Hang with it man, Adam'll come through, no sweat." 

Feeling a little steadier now, he crossed around to Emma. She wasn't smiling; her expression seemed caught in a permanent wince of pain. Even in sleep she couldn't escape what the world was giving her, pure and unfiltered. Maybe the sedative only made it easier on them not to hear her scream. He wanted to brush her damp hair away from her forehead, try in someway to make her more comfortable. But he hazarded a guess that the equivalent of an electric chair delivered to her head probably wasn't going to do that and kept his hands firmly gripped on the slowly melting plastic chair. 

"Hey sleeping beauty. I don't know if you can hear me at all right now, maybe. Sorry if it hurts ... I gotta take a walk." He smirked with dark humour. "I may be some time." And instantly regretted introducing that little bit of morbid cynicism into her psyche, trying to think calm and remorseful thoughts in it's place. 

"Shalimar is out, the meds are gone, but you're going to be okay, she wouldn't hurt you. Adam will be back, really, really soon. I..." 

And she was there. Not waking, not a vision, but there all the same, he could feel her all around him. 

"Em?" 

There was heat, not like the fire in his veins that was slowly cracking his skin, but heart warmed. Comforting and affectionate, a little sad but optimistic, flighty but grounded; it was Emma. And then it was gone. 

It took him a moment to find his voice, when he did it was with a smile and an almost amused shake of his head. "Yeah, you too." 

That was it. There was nothing else he could do. If he tried to take Shalimar, he'd fail and probably kill them both. If he based his luck on the training area's force field holding against him, he'd probably kill everyone. Time to go. 

  
"_Yes_" 

It was low, barely more than a whisper, but held enough force and almost vicious triumph behind it that every man and woman sweating over their assigned research in the labs turned with almost disbelieving hope to look at Adam. 

He was staring bright eyed down at the petri dish in his hand. 

"It's not a virus. Oh, it's good, it hides well enough as one, but it's not." 

Eckhart's command came over the loud speaker, apparently sharing no one else's sudden hope at the breakthrough, but rather a vexed tone. 

"Well, spit it out, what is it?" 

"Human." 

  
She wanted to follow him, but he had been swept away quickly on the river, waterfall, that her mind had become. His lake drowned out by the flood in an instant. There had been something she so desperately wanted to tell him, warn him of, but now she was forgetting it, losing that last little piece of herself to the ocean. At last, Emma fell into it, only half regretful, let herself be carried away from the clawed shadow that stalked them in the guise of a disease. 

Perhaps it was for the best. 

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**Notes**  
Heh ... been a while. And not only that, people're gonna think it's a dern rip-off now. But this was started way before the end of S1! Honest! If anyone does remember this and have been waiting for the next chapter, sorry. I make no promises when the next one will be out, but it will, really! 


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)  
Thanks: To everyone that's read and reviewed, and to my lovely Beta, Mitchy.  
  
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The surf crashed against the cliffs and the sky darkened dramatically as black clouds bruised the last blues of the fading day. A storm was coming in fast, he could feel it running down his nerves as much as see the evidence, his system responding to the lightning that would shortly be appearing. Brennan muttered quietly under his breath, calculating the measure of suck that was his life, as he took what little shelter the side of a vent provided.   
  
He'd managed to crowbar most of his twenty-nine years into a fairly elegant equation, divided by 'n' where 'n' equalled suck, and come out with a surprisingly positive number before the first rain began to fall.   
  
-o-  
  
Jesse felt consciousness slam into him, his heart thudding in his chest almost painfully as he opened his eyes. A second passed before the med bay came into focus, a second longer before he remembered why he was there. Muted by solid rock, the sounds of a storm outside came clear, a low rumble that ebbed and flowed as it echoed through Sanctuary.   
  
"Adam?" His voice cracked half way through; he cleared his throat and tried again. "Shal? Emma?" The storm and his rapid heart beat were all he could hear. This couldn't be good. One hand came up to rub at his face, but the sensation of his fingers on the growth of stubble felt numb, unreal. Like he was just a little too drunk for his own good. Maybe he should just sleep some more…  
  
"Okay, up and at 'em Jesse." His lips had moved, he'd felt it, but there had been no intent to speak. Freaky. On the other hand, his voice sounded a lot more confident and in control than he felt, which was oddly comforting. He'd just listen to his voice and see what happened from there. Except he didn't appear to be following his own orders. "Up". An unfamiliar snarl in his tone made him jump and, for the first time, he wondered if he was entirely there. In mind at least, he didn't worry about body for now. Chances were he wouldn't like the answer.  
  
This time he obeyed himself and swung his legs around as he sat up. The counter was cold to the touch, too cold. He stared at his fingers for what seemed like a long, long, time before he took them out of the metal. "Pull yourself together man!" With a little giggle, he watched his hand approach something more solid, though they remained strangely frayed around the edges, as if he were slowly being unravelled like an unwanted Christmas sweater.  
  
"Ah, geez, what the hell did they put in the drugs?"  
  
He turned fast before realising the voice was still his, and then his eyes fell on the shaking form of Emma. Her eyes were wide and bright, pupils contracted to become tiny points of black in wild seas of blue. Man, he got poetic when he was high, maybe he should contract deadly plagues more often. Or, you know, not.  
  
Dumbly he watched her, waiting for the voice to tell him what to do next, but there was nothing. After a while his attention began to wander to an interesting shadow on the wall, then dragged back to Emma with an effort. "Find something to sedate her again, or she'll die." With a pleased smile, he set out to do that, happy to be given something to do. He scrabbled through the cabinets, triumphantly holding up what looked like a good bottle. "Antacid isn't going to help, Mensa-boy." His face fell and he began to search the floor, coming up with a couple of white tablets under his previous bed. When there appeared to be no pressing urge to insult himself again, he went on a water search.  
  
At last, cup in one hand and pills clutched tightly in the other, he stood over Emma once more. Her breath was coming in shallow hitches, hands twitching and clawing in on themselves. From afar he winced to see the bloody furrows her nails had cut into her palms, and the thin trickle of red leaking from her eyes and nose, but in the gooey soft-centre that was his brain, he simply waited to be told how to continue.  
  
"Going to have to crush the pills or she'll choke on them." He nodded agreeably and crushed the beaker down on them, grinding out a fine powder that he added to the water without prompting, feeling obscurely pleased to manage it.  
  
"Okay … don't take initiative again, now we have to make her drink it all. Dammit. Lift her head and pour a little water in. Go slow. Rub her throat to help her swallow." When he continued to simply stand there, he heard a little sigh escape his mouth. "So we go one step at a time. Jesse, lift her head…"  
  
Jesse decided to worry about the 'we' later.  
  
-o-  
  
It amused her to watch the little man walk around yelling at himself. He looked like prey caught by the neck, swinging in the jaws of the hunter, jerking disjointedly as he walked here and there, or simply stood and stared into space for minutes at a time.  
  
The original inclination to leap at him, bring him down with a swift and lethal bite to the neck, was held at bay by the curiousity value.   
  
Yellow eyes continued to watch from the shadows of the doorway, a tail flicked side to side, and the mouse failed to notice.  
  
-o-  
  
"Human in what sense, precisely?" Eckhart leaned over the microscope to get a better view of the sample that Adam had made his grand declaration over. "… Ah, I see." He stepped back and looked to the other man, who had the absently contemplative look of one not entirely paying attention to their arch-nemesis. This would never do.  
  
"Adam!"  
  
Adam blinked slowly and looked to Eckhart, noting the expression of forced patience overlaying the sensation he would be shortly ordering the guards to throw him in a cell. He wasn't terribly worried; it was the man's default state.  
  
"It doesn't fit any of the standard groups. What else were you experimenting with, Eckhart?"   
  
"Me? Why do you assume my involvement? I had you brought in to consult on this development, remember?"   
  
Adam levelled a flat eyed and unblinking stare at the man proclaiming his innocence. "No, I think you'll find you had my people infected in lieu of putting together a tempting consultancy package, something we will be having some very precise and pointed words about shortly. But, to answer your question, someone with advanced gene technology has created a sentient virus, with incalculable applications as a weapon. I can't imagine why on earth I would think of you."  
  
Eckhart straightened his jacket irritably and frowned. "Yes, well, in this instance, I was not involved. 'Incalculable applications' do not, in this case, outweigh the result and, while I admit to the occasional risk in the name of science, I would not condone something with the potential to wipe out an entire species. Namely, my own."  
  
Silence fell around the laboratory, save for the clinking of glass beakers and the shuffle of the technicians in their safety suits.   
  
Jude watched the staring contest with growing impatience, before finally coughing and speaking. "So, what does this mean? How can it be stopped?"  
  
Both men turned their eyes on her and she fought not to take a step back, compensating by glaring belligerently.  
  
Adam at last spoke. "I think we attempt to reason with it."  
  
-o-  
  
Most of the water had been lost, and she could smell the chemical sharpness of the powdered tablets suspended in the puddles on the floor. The prey was still talking to itself as it tried to ease the choking of the spasmodically coughing woman on the table.  
  
"Don't pat, don't pat, you'll make it worse! Just turn her on her side. No! Not all the way over. Okay, good. Open her mouth. Mouth. Under the nose, there's only one. Move Jesse, c'mon. Good, now, is she breathing properly? Listen to her chest. Does it rattle? Don't fall asleep! Stand up."  
  
Now he stood, silent again, gaze fixed on the shadows on the wall as the woman on the table took laboured gasps. It didn't seem he would be entertaining her again any time soon, and the welcome smell of warm blood didn't come so strongly to her sensitive nose any more.  
  
Shalimar ran her tongue over her lips as she moved fluidly into the room, paws silent over the floor.   
  
The blood she could do something about.  
  
-o-  
  
Later, when she had more coherency of thought than 'hunt, kill, eat', Shalimar would still wake in a cold sweat from nightmares that her conscious mind couldn't really recall. She would remember the leap, remember the orange glow of her prey, and remember the simple, almost innocent, desire to kill the man she loved as a brother. And, she would remember how she ceased to be.  
  
Jesse was only aware of a heavy but soft sensation at his back, as if someone had thrown a pillow at him. He spun awkwardly, trying to see what had hit him; the fragments of his mind, minds, piecing slowly into a whole as he did so.   
  
By the time he looked back to Emma, deciding that mystery could wait, his mind felt clear but fragilely so, ready to shatter in a moment from his tenuous hold. Maybe this would let him work out why his vision was tinged with orange, and why his team mate suddenly smelt like food.  
  
"Well ... this could be better."  
  
The floor began to shake under his feet in sympathy with an almighty, deafening, crash of thunder above. The emergency lights cut out without a fight, leaving him once more in the pitch darkness. Brennan. Maybe. Too close, but probably as far away as he was able to get.   
  
His lips tightened as he concentrated on areas he could actually make a difference in, drawing a deep breath and focussing his thoughts.  
  
"… or, it could be worse."  
  
Just able to feel the solid surface of the table beneath him, he tentatively felt for Emma, trying to ignore the feeling he should be nuzzling, even ripping, at her instead. Still movement, still the too-warm wash of her breath over his hand.  
  
"You'll be okay."  
  
"No, she will not … we are sorry."  
  
The voice came from too close to be anyone's but his own, even if it carried a different, deeper, timbre to the norm.  
  
"Who are you, are you doing this? Why are you doing this?" He gritted his teeth to keep the modulation calm and level, only to discover his mouth opening once more for a reply.  
  
"We are killing you. We have no choice. We are sorry."  
  
"Start talking, and don't stop until you've told me how to make her, us, better."  
  
"We cannot, we are sorry."  
  
"No, see, you stopped before I told you to. And if you're going to say sorry, say it like you mean it."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"On second thoughts, just stop saying it and get back to the part about how we get rid of you. How many of you are there?"  
  
"More than has meaning for you, in the air, in you, in countless others. There is nothing more to say, there is nothing more that we can tell you."  
  
"Then why the hell are you talking at all?"  
  
"Because … we are sorry, and we want you to understand."  
  
"I don't understand!" Jesse kicked out at the chair he could vaguely feel beside him, feeling the lightest brush as he phased through it. "How can you do this?"  
  
He was suddenly glad of the darkness now, that he couldn't see the disintegration of his body. Maybe it would go before he noticed, and he would just remain and wait for Emma and the others. He continued on in a dull whisper as he stroked Emma's damp hair away from her forehead.  
  
"You're killing us, and you're sorry. Well, that makes it all okay then."  
  
"No." He said.  
  
"No." He agreed.  
  
-o-  
  
Emma waited, at last free of the racking pain in her body and mind, building up her strength once more. Leaving her body had been hard. Entering Jesse's drug fuelled one had been harder. Guiding him to care for her had been almost impossible.   
  
She wondered how long it would be before her body began to fail without its spirit but, more pressingly, she wondered how long she could hide her presence from the virus, an enraged black panther she barely had the strength to suppress, and … the other one.   
  
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Notes  
Funny thing happened on the way to the forum ::coughs:: ... apologies for the delay to anyone who's been following this, I can only say it _will_ be finished, and thank you for all the wonderful reviews! 


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)  
Thanks: To the lovely Mitchy for Betaing again. She makes I speling goud.  
  
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"Look at it" Adam breathed out with something near awe as he watched the virus multiply on the big screen feed from the microscope. "Just look at it." Implications aside, there was an undeniable beauty to the form they viewed. Perfect replication, perfect construction. Just, well, perfect.  
  
But it hadn't been the perfection of the virus that had led him to his conclusion on its origins, though it had given him cause to wonder. Nature was the truest example of check and balance there was, nothing capable of this destruction could be anything but man-made.  
  
He just hadn't realised quite how accurate that hypothesis had been. Not until the view through the microscope had shown, not a group of mindlessly moving cells and strands, but two clearly spelt words.  
  
Help Me.  
  
"I'm looking Adam, but I fail to share your regard. Perhaps there will be time to give it flowers and go on bended knee later, but do you think we might perhaps attempt to stop it first?"  
  
Before he could reply to Eckhart, another voice carried over in a slightly harried tone as it drew closer. "Mr Xero, we haven't been able to raise your people on the radio, and the METAR reports a huge electrical storm back in the area. There was another power spike about five minutes ago."   
  
Jude forestalled his next question by raising her hand and speaking over his obvious question as she approached closer. "They can't be more precise than that, it took out their monitory equipment, including heat measurements. They have no idea if anyone is alive down there, but certainly anyone on the surface would have been crispy fried."   
  
After a beat, she handed him the report with a pleasantly empty smile. "I'm sorry, that was tactless. They would have been immolated."  
  
Adam's jaw worked as Eckhart covered his mouth with his hand and looked down to check his shoes for non-existent scuffs before looking to his subordinate. "Thank you, Ms Riley, for your timely report. If you could please take a Task Unit out there to ensure the correct care of any survivors?"  
  
Now it was Jude's turn to smooth a scowl from her face and set it once more into the obedient mask. It seemed her harsh delivery hadn't been enough to get her out of the job she was hoping to avoid. Damn. "Of course sir, I'll leave with U Seventeen immediately."  
  
Adam remained silent; having no doubt at all about what Eckhart's definition of 'the correct care' would be, but having little he could say about it. What possible threat could he make? 'Hurt them and I'll let the race become extinct' didn't sound overly convincing.   
  
They were alive, he would not let himself believe otherwise, and they would be able to do more for themselves than he could. In any case, if he didn't find a cure soon, the point would be moot.  
  
One screen in the lab was switched to CNN, making almost non-stop emergency broadcasts about the destruction caused by increasing numbers of Genomex' children unable to help themselves. It was a matter of time before the rest of the population began to fall ill, and then they would be finished.  
  
The clicking of Riley's heels on the sterile floor signalled the despicable female was leaving and a glance back up showed Eckhart had also gone. He put his mind back into the near Zen calm he entered when working. What was he missing?  
  
After those two words there had been no more messages and his attempts to communicate in turn had shown no results that he could measure. Another approach was clearly in order.  
  
"Sanchez? Take a Telempath out of stasis, one in the earliest stages."  
  
-o-  
  
"Ow." Hey, he had a voice. He tried it again. "Ow". Yeah, okay, now he was on a roll. Actually, from the rocks painfully digging into his back, he guessed he was outside Sanctuary, but the important thing was that he was actually alive to give a certain amount of voice to his pain. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow". Brennan rolled to his side and struggled to his knees.   
  
It was raining, and it hurt. Little drops of water felt like acid, burning him as they hit and trickling hissing fire down his skin. There seemed to be a lot of skin. He blinked and looked down at the tattered remnants of his shirt and jeans. The phrase 'sartorial tragedy' flashed across his mind, something he'd read once, a long time ago. Or maybe just a couple of days ago. It had been a long week.  
  
He had been given perhaps two hours grace before he pulsed again, time to check on the others, try and contact Adam. Find shoes. Raising a hand to his still sluggishly bleeding neck he tacked sedating Shalimar onto the end of the list as he staggered upright.  
  
The slide down the vent was short and painful, unlike the crawl up, which had been long and painful. He crouched at the bottom catching his breath and deciding where he would demand Adam sent the team for R&R when this was over. Somewhere warm. And flat. No large cats. Or sudden unexpected explosions.  
  
The tremors of the blast knocked him back to the ground as even the walls shook. A quick mental run down of anything likely to go critical without monitoring produced no short list, and it had sounded like it came from the hanger before the echoes reverberating through the halls had ensured it couldn't be placed so easily. Someone had blasted open the landing doors and probably trashed the Double Helix in the process.   
  
Aiming for a run and settling for a shamble, he made his way towards the med lab by touch and memory alone, trying to hear for sounds of intrudors above his own harsh breathing. At last there was light, a flickering arc of yellow on the floor outside his destination. Not bright or steady enough to be torches, someone had lit a candle or two.   
  
The sound of talking from the room ahead drifted to him, it sounded like Jesse conversing in low tones with … Jesse. Oh, the explanation for this should be good. The world tilted as he moved faster, but the sound of jogging jack boots was coming closer, he couldn't stop and simply half fell the final few feet to lean against the door and hold himself upright.  
  
Four or five candles provided slight illumination on the scene, Emma utterly unmoving on the bed, Jesse standing by her side and mechanically stroking her hair as he talked.   
  
"No cure."  
  
"No."  
  
"Where did you come from?"  
  
"We don't know."  
  
"Are you meant to kill everyone?"  
  
"We don't know."  
  
"So, anyone good at I Spy?"  
  
"Brennan."  
  
Jesse opened his mouth to opinion that Brennan probably wasn't a big fan of the game, and then closed it as he turned to see the long form of the man himself slouching against the doorframe. Shadows masked a lot, but not so much he couldn't tell the man was running on fumes. Torn clothing, blood everywhere, patches of burnt black on his skin and pale blue eyes spilling an electric fire weren't making for an inspiring sight. Then again, he probably wasn't exactly a picture himself.  
  
"How did you know I was here?" Even the voice crackled with electricity, it wouldn't be long now for Brennan now. But he was still alive, and for that Jesse gave a tired grin that gave 'faded' an entirely literal meaning.  
  
"I didn't man, she did, not her though, she's too mad. And they don't really deal in names ... was the big bang earlier you?"  
  
Brennan debated an extended conversation that let him understand more than fifty percent of what Jesse was saying, but the sound of running shook him back to priorities.  
  
"We got visitors, someone blew the hanger."  
  
"That's a problem." Jesse's head tilted slightly as he watched Brennan come further into the room and attempt to close the door. "Why bother? They can come through the hangar, they can get in here. It'll just irritate them."  
  
Brennan grunted as he managed to free the door from its semi-welded open state and push it closed. "Because I like irritating people that are probably trying to kill me. It's a tradition, it gives me a warm glow." With a sigh he allowed gravity to pull him down to sit on the floor with his back to the door that was doubtless imminently about to be kicked in. And, then, with a little smile, he bought his arm up to rest his hand on the metal frame. "I also live to shock." Hopefully he'd have time to reflect on how bad that was later, but Jesse for once didn't groan. So, things really were that dire.  
  
The first of the Task Unit to try the handle of the door had a split second to realise something was wrong before his body began to convulse with the current that ran through it, the hand with a death grip on the metal. Another two were lost trying to drag him away before Jude managed to tell her testosterone driven idiots to back away and, at some point, read a physics book that had big pictures.  
  
She stepped up to the door, trying to ignore the nauseating stench of charred flesh, and spoke loud enough, she hoped, to be heard inside.  
  
"Mr. Mulwray, Brennan, we're here to help. Let us in!"  
  
After a few seconds, a voice that cracked at every word came back, sounding morbidly amused. "Are you going to huff and puff and blow the door down?"   
  
"Nooo, but I will just release some cyanide and wait. Let us in and no one else has to die. We have masks, Mr Mulwray, do you?"  
  
"Would you believe me if I said yes?"  
  
Brennan motioned for Jesse to pick Emma up and retreat to the far side of the room, but the other man simply shook his head and stepped into the thin light. He was completely see-through, losing his form around the edges and even the finer details of his features. Just visible were what appeared to be two beating hearts inside him.   
  
"Ah … on second thoughts, mi casa es su casa."  
  
He rolled away from the door, not bothering to assure them of its safety, and hauled himself to his feet once more into a fighting stance that wouldn't have fooled a six year old.  
  
-o-  
  
The Telempath that he'd hurridly been introduced to, Marcus, lay sweating on the floor, fingers clawed into it as if trying to hold on. His smile had been bright when they had released him from the long captivity, but became hard on hearing he was infected with a deadly virus, and there was as yet no cure. Still, he had agreed to help despite the risks and, for that Adam swore he would ensure the man would not be making the potential sacrifice in vain.  
  
They had tried to make him comfortable on one of the beds but he fell off it so often, despite the restraints, that they ended up simply leaving him and bringing the blankets and monitoring equipment down.  
  
In the centre of Marcus' forehead a darkly pulsing red light glowed, occasionally sending a bolt of some form of pure mental force towards the ceiling. There were three holes already, punched through the building and out the roof.   
  
Adam crouched beside him with the petri dish and tried to get through to the rapidly declining young man.  
  
"Marcus, what do you see? Can you understand it?"  
  
In a series of chokes an answer came. "Scared. Tired. Can't stop."  
  
"He? It's a he. Does he have a name?"  
  
"Bob." The Telempath's eyes opened balefully, aware enough to shoot Adam a sardonic expression. "He's a virus. Now. What the hell would he. Be doing. With. A name."  
  
Adam's mouth twitched with a smile, obscurely proud of the young man's response. He'd had nothing to do with it, but it said something still that the Children of Genomex, for good or ill, rarely knew how to say die. "Sorry. Okay, he said to help him, how can we help him?"  
  
Slowly, pausing often to give Marcus more water, the answer came. About a child of Genomex who's Molecular abilities had mutated further still to eventually give him the form of a virus. He had been benign, simply jumping from host to host and using their bodies for a short time and altering their physiognomy to make them stronger in case he were attacked.   
  
And then he had made the mistake of jumping into another Molecular, and had mutated once more. Now he left infection in his wake, 'children' with the simple goal to take over their host, and maximise its potential, killing it in the process. They had jumped into a Feral and mutated themselves further into a larger life-form, a parasite that simply killed. It, like him, could inhabit only one body at a time, but unlike he, could exist without a host. A macro-virus on the loose.  
  
But the original children were still airborne and breeding constantly. He had contact with them of a sort, was able to take over any one of them, but there was no control.  
  
Marcus' eyes glazed as the machines connected to him began to flat line. With one last pulse of energy towards the sky he seemed to cave in on himself and then, with one last rattle of breath, he died.  
  
Adam leaned over to close the young man's eyes and hung his head for a long moment before his lips thinned and he looked up at the technician standing closest.   
  
"We need more information, take another Telempath out of stasis."  
  
Above them in his office, Eckhart smiled. It was so nice to see the old Adam back. It would be even nicer to have the opportunity to remind him of this moment of callousness. Again and again. And, preferably, in front of witnesses. Perhaps, later, they could have that little talk about ends and means again.  
  
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Notes: Two chapters in one day and the 10th - and final - chapter nearly finished. Yeah, I'm in shock too. 


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: It's all somebody else's. No money made. Suing will profit no one.  
Want?: Take ... Have ... just lemme know where it's going :)  
Thanks: To everyone for reading, reviewing, and of course to the fabulous Mitchy. (This was longer than the other chapters, 'lovely' gets an upgrade)  
  
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Another Telempath had died, this time before contact had even been established. Adam didn't know what her name had been, only seen the confusion reflecting still in the empty eyes he closed with a gentle hand. He refused to bring another out.   
  
Eckhart still paced in his office, he could see the man's constant movement through the glass wall out of the corner of his eye as he sat at his workstation, blindly staring at the computer screen and allowing his mind to process the information it had been given.  
  
There were three distinct forms of virus. The first 'zero' infection was non-deadly and sentient; he had begun to mentally refer to it as 'Bob' in honour of Marcus. The second was a variation of 'Bob', possibly semi-sentient, airborne and wreaking the majority of the havoc; he labelled it Junior. The third strain was a variation of Junior, deadly and contained to a single body or the form of a macro-virus; no name had yet been assigned to that particular horror.  
  
He had tried to think, he had tried to research, and now he let his mind clear to wait for the spark of inspiration.  
  
Unfortunately, that allowed the distractions in. Fleeting flashes of worst scenarios and possible futures, globally and finally on a more personal scale. Were they still alive? What would he find when he returned home? Would he close their eyes as he closed Marcus'?  
  
There was wetness on his cheek and he swept it away in frustration. This was not the time to give in to sleep deprivation and fear, this was the time to be the 'vaunted genius' Eckhart had mockingly proclaimed him to be.  
  
The sensation of something scratching at his mind appeared, something hovering and waiting to be realised. It was like with the generator; there, waiting, but a small piece of the puzzle was missing. Well, he didn't have time for that piece to make itself known, not anymore. He forced himself into concentration mode again, shutting the thoughts of his team from his mind.  
  
It came almost immediately. When Emma had tried to read Brennan's emotions, she had claimed it was like another being was in there with him, fighting. And there were the scratches on the wall he had seen by Brennan's door, he had thought they were made by Shalimar, but …  
  
He stood fast and turned to the ape currently assigned to him. "I have to get to Sanctuary, NOW." The man jumped and reflexively looked up to the window that Eckhart was peering through with detached interest. A moment later the man's voice came over the loud hailer.  
  
"May I ask why?"  
  
"The third virus – the one capable of existing outside the host body. I know where it is. Brennan must have bought it into Sanctuary, and it's been counter-acting the macro-virus in him, maybe in all of them, somehow. They should have died almost instantly with the exposure they had, and they didn't. I have to find out how. Ah, the hell with this, get me back there and we have a chance."  
  
Slowly, far too slowly for Adam's agitated nerves, Eckhart nodded. "Very well, but you are taking a small guard with you." The man smirked "For your own protection, of course."  
  
"I don't care if you're sending the entire goon squad and their cheerleaders with me Eckhart, just do it."  
  
-o-  
  
Brennan licked his dry lips quickly as he tried to stay between the force filing into the room and the table holding the still form of Emma. "What big guns you have, Grandma."  
  
"You're mixing your fairy tales but, if it makes you feel better, 'All the better to shoot you with, my dear'". Jude took a long look around the room, seeing the ghostly form of the man who attempted to strangle her, the woman on the table and the pathetically swaying elemental. "Things do not look good for our heroes."  
  
"Yeah, well, we're lulling you into a false sense of security." Jesse's voice was reed thin and barely above a whisper, but held the bravado that had been lacking from it earlier.   
  
"Uh huuuuh, very convincing, have to say. I'd clap but, hey, big gun." By way of emphasis, she waved the 9mm towards Brennan. "Over by the table."   
  
As the elemental acquiesced, she spoke to the rest of the men without looking away from her target. "Clean house boys, get it all."  
  
The Task Force moved forward to begin ripping out the hard drives and ransacking the filing cabinets, but froze as the air around Brennan turned a crackling white-blue. "Don't think so." When the woman's finger tightened on the trigger he simply smiled; it couldn't have been a pleasant one, judging by the way she flinched. "You aren't going to shoot me. Wanna know why? Because, chances are, everything around me will go boom in a Fourth of July come early kinda way. Sounds like a fun way to go to me ... Want to try?"  
  
"Then we're back to the cyanide option, Brennan." Jude attempted not to look too pleased by the prospect. She didn't want to kill them, not in cold blood at least. That ran a little too close to the line, even for her. Resistance, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. She could justify that.  
  
"Well, see, I'll just blow everything in here up anyway. How fast can you run? Good legs, maybe you'd even make it to the end of the corridor before the oxygen ran out and the fire caught you." Brennan decided to go for broke, with nothing left to lose, and grinned wider. "Well, pretty good legs, anyway. Desk job not giving you time to work out?"  
  
Jude wondered briefly whether comments about her physique counted as resistance. A small, sickly, conscience informed her it didn't. She settled for keeping retorts verbal, for now. Besides, it didn't look like the man would be able to keep conscious much longer anyway.  
  
"Oh, I work out, I just don't feel like replacing my mind with muscle." She cast a deliberate look up and down his body, but didn't take the comment any further.  
  
Jesse gradually allowed himself to fade from sight as Brennan provided the distraction; no one appeared to notice his disappearance. With a faint hope he would be able to fade back in again, he moved behind the still hesitant goon squad and made the effort to re-materialise. Every cell in his body protested and the edges of his vision began to grey out before he once more reappeared.   
  
Now it was time to put his plan into effect, and hope like hell Emma's calm voice resounding inside his head was right.  
  
"Sic 'em, Shal"  
  
As the men before him rapidly spun to face him, he forced his molecules into action one more time. With a ripping sensation of flying apart he saw the aborted leap Shalimar had taken at his back resumed without pause into the faces of the stunned invaders, from within his own body - not something he intended to witness anytime again soon, but it was worth it just for their expressions. At least, it was worth it until he couldn't find the energy to pull himself back together again. With a whispered "ah, hell" he fell sideways.  
  
Freedom! Deep at her core, where she fought so hard to be just a little more than a beast, Shalimar watched in horror as her teeth ripped into her first target's neck and her powerful jaws snapped the spine in two with barely an effort, before tearing the man's throat out.  
  
The blood ran hot and heady into her muzzle, but she didn't stay to claim her kill, leaping instead to the next man and bringing him down just as she had the first. A loud sound rang out and her leg flared in sudden pain, but she ignored it as she took the arm of the third man in her teeth and pulled.   
  
His scream welled a fierce kind of joy in her, something no animal could have. The joy was hers alone and, in the tiny confines of her mind, Shalimar wept.  
  
Jude had time for one shot into the red mist surrounding the great cat before Brennan moved with a speed that made her eyes water to stand in front of the gun. She lowered it, numb now at seeing the decimation of her forces. Her mouth was dry and she swallowed thickly before speaking. "Aren't you worried she'll come after you next?"  
  
"Who, Shal?" Brennan pretended to consider as he looked over his shoulder with a grim smile he hoped hid the sickness at its edges. He didn't have a tendency towards prayer, God hadn't done him any favours he was aware of. But now was a good a time to start as any, he prayed she wouldn't remember. If she did, she wouldn't get over this. She'd pretend, and she'd be tough, and she'd laugh and joke again, but she wouldn't be Shalimar anymore, not after this.   
  
He made no attempt to put the levity back in his tone, or keep the sadness from his eyes, as he looked back "What's to be worried about?"   
  
Six men down and the cat prowled around its kills, nuzzling at them to ensure they were indeed dead. Brennan could see, literally, the outline of Jesse lying on the floor beyond, but every move he made in his direction caused orange eyes to be turned on him in warning.  
  
"Let me shoot her."  
  
"Hmm, let me think, no."  
  
"Godammit Mulwray, we don't have a choice." Jude waved her gun towards him, and then dropped it fast as a small arc of lightning melted it in her hand, too hot and too fast to even to ignite the bullets.  
  
"Nope, now we don't have a choice. You shot her once, you aren't doing it again."  
  
Sucking on her burned fingers Jude subsided into a resentful silence. Looked like they would just have to hang around and wait for electro-boy to explode. Joy. At least they could do it in silence, but that hope was dashed as he spoke in the irritatingly crackly voice again.  
  
"Jess' man, wake up or you're gonna to fade." There was no response but Shalimar's hackles rising in warning. He ignored the threat and yelled. "Jesse!"  
  
One ear of the big cat twitched as it turned and limped over to Jesse, licking the back of what there was of his neck once. Brennan's rush forward aborted under a warning glare, and it returned to trying to revive it's fallen … what? The cat mind didn't know. But something was prodding within now, directing it's actions patiently and slowly, and soothing the barely recognisable human mind buried within it.  
  
Emma was starting to forget what her own body felt like.  
  
-o-  
  
The huge rent in the hangar doors at least made landing the helicopter easier, and Adam was out of it and running the second the aircraft touched down. The Unit weren't far behind, but he had no concern for them. His efforts redoubled as he heard the sound of a gunshot ringing through the base, and the beam of his torchlight bobbed ahead to let him avoid the debris.  
  
His palm was slick around the tranq gun the torch was attached to, finger on the trigger slipping alarmingly, but there was no time to stop and make ready. He turned the corner into the med lab without pausing and snapped the rifle up to his shoulder.  
  
One second of frozen time to assess the carnage of the tableau before him, and he took his shot. The great cat's body jerked once as its muzzle turned almost curiously towards the dart now imbedded in the thick muscles of its neck, and then fell sideway to fold unconscious on the floor.   
  
Then he started to breathe again.  
  
Jude pursed her lips as she crossed her arms loosely and took a more relaxed stance. "Oh, so he gets to shoot her?"  
  
She was ignored as both men crossed over, Adam to attempt to take Jesse's pulse and Brennan to get a measure of Shalimar's leg wound. The scientist spoke above the sound of the Unit jogging in to take defensive positions around the room.  
  
"There seems to be something like a pulse, he's alive I think." Adam brought his head up to lock eyes with Brennan, trying to ignore the worrying way the other man's sparked with unnatural energy. "We have to move fast, somewhere here is a macro-virus you carried in. It may hold the key to finding an antibody for what's killing you all, if we can find it."  
  
Across the room, Jude stood straighter and couldn't think why. When her mouth opened and her throat began to work towards forming words, she automatically fought back. A light pressure began in her mind, not painful but persistent. Scrabbling mentally for freedom, she was lost under the onslaught.  
  
"The macro-virus is in Shalimar. It started in Brennan, jumped to Jesse and then into Shal when she merged into him. I've been trying to communicate with it, but there isn't a real mind to hold onto. I'm sorry, Adam."  
  
The two men watched as Jude's normally carefully fixed expression took on the softer lines of Emma's, the Task Unit shuffled back warily, unsure now where they should be targeting their rifles. The leader of the squad spoke up uncertainly, voice tinny and bled of its emotion though the radio in his helmet.  
  
"Status ma'am?"  
  
Jude's head swung to face him, and she smiled. "Ms Riley is fine, I'm only borrowing her. Just … go to sleep for a little while."   
  
One by one rifles dropped from suddenly loose grips as their owners sagged to the ground unconscious.  
  
Emma stretched the hands of the unfamiliar body before her, savouring the sensation of being within a healthy vessel, no longer bound into controlling Shalimar's killer instinct. She could feel Jude inside her, fighting her presence far more than either of the others had, but perhaps this mind had more to hide. Diligently she avoided looking at the memories that weren't her own to review. Even if they did hold anything that could help, it was enough she had stolen the woman's being from her. Guilt attempted to surface briefly, but there was more at stake here than Jude's fury at a corporeal hijacking.  
  
Adam began to manhandle the dead weight of the big cat onto the table that had been Jesse's. For the moment he had to ignore everything else, the sense that time was running out pressed down on him with a greater weight and he still didn't know if his hypothesis even had a snowballs chance in Hades.  
  
"We need to force it out of Shalimar and into the open." He stood back and cast his eye around desperately for anything that might accomplish that as he continued speaking, mostly to himself. "Have to make the environment unfriendly, but I don't know what lengths we'd have to go to for that." Even as he said it, he knew exactly the length it was most likely they would have to go to.   
  
All the drugs they had relied on the computer to regulate them, and in any case were designed for human chemistry. Brennan was staring at him as he forced himself to look up at him, already starting to shake his head, knowing what was going to be asked.  
  
"We don't have a choice Brennan. Look at Jesse, look at him, he's almost gone. Emma's barely breathing and there is no way you're going to survive another pulse."  
  
Brennan dragged his gaze from Adam to Jesse, then Emma, before looking back once more. "You're telling me to kill her!"  
  
"And then you bring her back. Electricity starts the heart as well as stops it; you know that better than anyone. It will work Brennan." Adam took a step closer to the younger man, trying to modulate his tone into a reassuring calm he wasn't feeling as he repeated himself. "We don't have a choice. It will work."  
  
The faintest uncertain nod was all he waited for before looking to Emma. "Once it's out, we need to contain it. Are you able to do that?"  
  
With a faint smile Emma's voice spoke in a strange harmonic of low voices. "We will ensure she is able."  
  
Adam gave a tight smile as Junior joined the battle. "Okay. Brennan, do it."  
  
For a moment he thought the man would refuse once more, there was no movement, but then he saw the expression of intense concentration. A blue nimbus began to surround Shalimar, widening and darkening so slowly he found himself holding his breath in anticipation.  
  
Then the first convulsion came from the animal as it was jolted by enough, just enough, electricity to stop the heart. As if she too were a Molecular the fur on her side shimmered and dispersed to let a glistening, misshapen, sphere explode from within the body. It dived towards Adam, close enough he could smell it's sickly-sweet rotting odour before it was abruptly held squirming in mid-air.  
  
"Start her heart!"  
  
But the other two were ahead of him; the electricity was jolting through the great cat and Emma was diverting a portion of her attention to monitor the mental life signs.   
  
"No brain activity, hit her again."  
  
Another jolt of electricity came, but this one crackled and hissed unevenly, not giving the precision or strength needed. Brennan let his legs give out and hit the ground hard as he tried to maintain an element of control. "I can't do it, the charge is building too much."  
  
Emma dropped a hand on his shoulder, using the contact to feed another portion of herself into Brennan's psyche, and fighting her way to the core of his ability. He was trying to play the little Dutch boy, but damming an ocean not a river. A few rivulets of his power escaped into Shalimar, but there was no way he could continue to hold back the sea and still focus what he allowed through. Without thinking further she threw her mind entirely into his, abandoning Jude but reinforcing the fragile wall between Shalimar and evaporation.  
  
One more shot pulsed out, the last she knew even their combined strength was capable of. It was strong and targeted and, finally, after a delay far too long for her fear, the great cat's sides draw in as it heaved in a lungful of air, and then another.  
  
Adam saw Jude stagger to one side like a marionette released of its strings. The lid of the glass beaker slammed down on the freed organism as it began to dart forward once more.  
  
"Got you!"   
  
Brennan didn't even try and interfere as Emma forced his body back to its feet and over to Jesse. The younger man was barely more than a collection of dots, a Pointillist painting in 3D, but his closed eyes still flickered in REM and the slight habitual smile was still in place.   
  
"Hey man."  
  
There didn't seem to be much more to say, he doubted Jesse would even hear him anyway. Talking to coma patients was one thing, but they probably hadn't devised theories about the correct care of someone slowly coming apart at an atomic level. Something he pretty much considered good, all things taken into account.  
  
Somewhere in the background he could hear Adam shouting excitedly and Jude yelling back. It sounded like they were doing something interesting, but he couldn't quite find the energy to look around anymore. Summoning a coughed out and mostly silent laugh at the irony, he decided to close his eyes, just for a moment.   
  
He was out before he hit the ground beside Jesse, missing Emma's gentle departure back to her own body, for better or for worse, at last.  
  
-o-  
  
Shalimar stretched as she awoke, enjoying the tactile sensation of the clean sheets against her skin. A tingling in her leg on the edge of sharp pain gave her pause before she moved once more, testing this time. Yes, there was definitely something wrong.   
  
"Hey, hey, don't move so much. You'll bust stitches and then Emma will get cranky. Remember what happened last time she got cranky? I slept with a stuffed bear for a week!"   
  
Jesse's cheerful tone above her sidelined the worry for a moment, and she opened her eyes with a grin. "I remember, but it was your own fault." Then something surfaced above the pleasant haze of the painkillers and her grin began to fade. "What happened? I don't remember … the lights went out … what …"  
  
"Hey, pretty lady." Brennan's stride into the room was relaxed, as was his smile. A book was held loosely in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other "Welcome back to the land of the living."  
  
Fading bruises decorated his face, a violent combination of oranges and purples that made her wince just to look at them. "You look like you had a fight with a crayon factory."  
  
"Colouring outside the lines is a bigger crime than you'd think. How's the leg?"  
  
She flexed it once more, ignoring Jesse's meaningful expression that she should not. "Twinges, a little. Can I get up?"  
  
"You're kidding, right? Like I'm going to tell Emma I let you out of here. After what she did to Jesse?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, cranky, I get it." Shalimar let herself relax back against the pillows with a pout slightly ruined by the smile. "Is someone going to tell me what happened now?"  
  
Jesse and Brennan regarded each other thoughtfully across the opposite sides of the bed, waging a non-vocal war of expressive stares and blinking over who was going to explain this. Jesse was losing the battle at roughly the same time as Shalimar was losing her patience, when a thought occurred.  
  
"No! Uh, I mean, I'll get Adam."  
  
He left fast at a run as Brennan began to back towards the door with an apologetic smile. "There's all these big words involved, and he'll want to know you're awake anyhow."  
  
Before she could object, he too was gone. Heading towards, if she was any judge, the sound of heavy construction. Strange. With a sigh, she began to pick at the sheets, waiting for Adam. Him, she was going to hold for an explanation, even if she had to … well, she'd think of something threatening by the time he arrived.  
  
-o-  
  
Jude leant back in her chair and ran her eyes over her report one more time. Mr. Eckhart wasn't going to like this. At least the contents wouldn't come as a nasty shock, he had the tendency to know what was going on at all times anyway. Maybe the reports were just his way of doing his little part to ensure the depletion of the Rainforest.  
  
Still, there had to be better way to say 'Miserable failure'. 'Objective incomplete' might work. Or maybe 'It was all that guy in Accountings fault.' Then of course there was the missing Task Force to explain away, as if she could. Absently she called over to her current assistant. "How do you spell Sanctuary?"  
  
The woman looked up in slight confusion. "S-A-N-C-T-U-A-R-Y".  
  
"So not E-I-G-H-T-H-C-I-R-C-L-E-O-F-H-E-L-L?"  
  
There was a short silence as this was worked out, then the voice more timidly replied. "Uhm, no?"  
  
"Just checking." She deleted the line and sighed as she started the document printing. "If I'm not back in three hours, expect a promotion. I'd wear running shoes for the occasion, personally."  
  
Her assistant gave no reply; Jude's estimation of the young woman increased a notch. It was an important workplace skill to know exactly when to stay quiet.  
  
Then she stood, enclosed the report in a folder, squared her shoulders and went to meet her maker. Boss. Whatever.  
  
For once Eckhart read the entire report, having taken it from her with an insincere smile of interest that did little to help her anxiety levels. Once the last page had turned, he looked up with an expression of polite enquiry.  
  
"All data on the whereabouts of Sanctuary 'missing'?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"An entire Task Force 'misplaced'?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"All research on the virus 'mislaid'."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"The original sample 'vanished' … did you perchance use a thesaurus and look up 'lost' a great deal for this report?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"I see. No records of how Adam managed to create the antibody?"  
  
"No, sir."  
  
"Tell me, Ms Riley, did we manage to achieve any of our objectives at all?"  
  
"We're still alive, sir."  
  
"Yes, well, let's not be too hasty on that particular evaluation, shall we?"  
  
"Sir."  
  
"Do you hate them, Ms Riley?"  
  
Jude paused in her mechanical answers and frowned with slight confusion as she replied. "Sir?"  
  
His tone was patient, even a little amused. That wasn't a sign she really wanted to consider. "They took your memory and they took the data that might have been enough to keep you out of stasis. Do you hate them?"  
  
"No, sir."  
  
That appeared to peek his interest as he leant forward, hands clasped before him. "And why not?"  
  
"Because hate won't help me hurt them."  
  
"I see." He sat back once more, before finally standing, pacing towards her. "And how would you hurt them?"  
  
"Other than fatally, I couldn't say sir. Research would be required, time needed to plan."  
  
They stared at each other a moment. Jude waited to be told she would have nothing but time to plan, but met his gaze without blinking and without fear.   
  
"Well, perhaps you had better begin, then. I expect a report in the next two weeks on what you recall of their strategic vulnerabilities, and how best to exploit them. You may go."  
  
Jude finally allowed herself to smile as she left the room and walked the long corridor, relaxing the mental suggestion over Eckhart by small enough degrees he would eventually believe the decision to allow her to live had been his.   
  
The records had been tricky to 'lose' and it had been even harder to convince everyone she had lost her memory along with the others. But the hardest part had been getting used to the odd stares she received for muttering to herself.  
  
"Bob, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."  
  
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Notes: Hoo-yah, we're done! Reviews are not only welcomed, but cared for lovingly and not given away at Christmas. Hope people enjoyed reading this, I enjoyed writing it, even if it did take nearly an entire year. :: hangs head :: Sorry about that, again. 


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